


Love Is Blind

by Dmnq8



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Different identities, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2010-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:04:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dmnq8/pseuds/Dmnq8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight ordinary people blinded by love, connected to each other though they're strangers.</p>
<p>Multiple pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sasuke

* * *

 

**Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat.

* * *

 

The neighborhood was poor, populated by every derivative of Hispanic culture imaginable. There were many such neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Sasuke happened to be in this one because of a Dominican restaurant further down the block he was currently on.

He was off duty now, but the young bloods, children, men and women watching him didn't need his uniform to make him as a cop. It was in the way he walked and how his eyes took in everything, even worried and distracted as he was. They weren't concerned. He was one of them, and a common sight in that neighborhood. Sasuke was good people.

A fellow _Boricua_ was coming out of the small diner-style restaurant as Sasuke was going in. He held the door for her and her two kids, nodding to her as she passed him. He entered and sat at the first available stool at the counter. Pito was manning the counter, as usual, along with two younger women. All three were Dominican. Pito smiled broadly at seeing Sasuke, flipped the dish towel in his hand to rest on his shoulder and came to lean his palms in front of where Sasuke sat.

"Ah, Sasuke, my man! Haven't seen you in awhile. Shoot anybody today?"

"Not today."

"You looking down, bro, whassup?"

" _Nada. La vida_. Gimme the roasted half chicken, white rice, beans, fried plantain and a salad. Oh, and the coconut juice, large."

"You got it," Pito turned to fill the order himself, aware that Sasuke wasn't in the mood to talk this time.

Sasuke had a Malta while he waited. It was ice cold, hitting the spot after the heat of the day. He swigged, completely occupied with his own personal problems while peripherally aware of the other patrons in the establishment. It was one of those cheap places that served food that was superior to what pricy restaurants had to offer by dint of its authenticity. Mom and Pop spots like this were all over New York. This one just happened to be Sasuke's favorite.

He heard a couple of young women seated somewhere behind him discussing him in whispers he was sure were deliberately too loud. He didn't bother turning around, nor was he amused. Didn't stop him from hearing, though.

"Mmh, I need me a man like _that."_

"Who, that cop?"

"Mmmmmmhm."

"Think he's single?"

"No wedding ring. Bet he's hung."

"The tall ones are always hung."

"He's thick too, just the way I like 'em."

"Go ask him out, ho."

Sasuke grimaced around another swallow of Malta. He _was_ thick. He'd been muscular during high school and the early years of his career, but he was starting to go soft. He was still well-developed, he supposed, but his gut as starting to grow a layer of fat and his arms and legs just weren't as cut as they had been a few years ago. And, he admitted wryly, he wasn't quite as fast as he used to be when it came to chasing down the perps. Which was sad, really. He was only thirty last month. Well, at least he still had his hair. He still cut an imposing figure at 6'4. Small blessings.

His food came and he dug right in, scraping the beans out of their small bowl and onto his rice. He stabbed a plantain with his fork, gouged a piece of chicken with the same utensil, and managed to get rice and beans on the fork as well. He shoved this all into his mouth, reaching for his coconut juice as he chewed.

For a few wonderful minutes he was okay. Food, the kind of food he'd been eating all his life, comforted him momentarily from thoughts of his problems. He forgot about his day, his unsatisfactory career, everything. For the short time that he had this food in front of him, life was great. He sighed roundly, leaning one forearm near his cluster of dishes as he attacked his chicken again.

-oOo-

It had been late, nearly closing time when Sasuke had walked in. By the time he was using his last piece of plantain to wipe bean gravy from his plate, the empty tables were being cleaned and the counter disinfected. He straightened on his stool, belched, and reached into his back pocket. Pito, seeing this, drifted over and waited to accept payment for the bill that had been placed at Sasuke's elbow a few minutes prior. Sasuke paid, received his change, and thanked Pito for the excellent food. He was the last customer to leave.

He walked the four blocks to where he had his vehicle parked. He drove off toward home, which wasn't more than half an hour away. His partner, a rookie named Konohamaru, had been dropped off before the restaurant.

Lights held him up as usual. His mind wandered and he lost himself to thoughts of Neji.

Sasuke loved Neji, loved him recklessly, completely, and violently. So violent were his emotions regarding Neji that they had virtually no depth or truth. Sasuke was aware that the tempestuousness of his infatuation was one-sided. He was. Truly, he was, but that did not make it any easier to check his devotion or the belief that showing Neji the profundity of them would eventually bring the man around. Consequently, he opened himself to Neji and bared everything the way he'd never done with another soul, ever.

And there had been that week, a period of a few days, when Neji had treated him just as importantly, had said the same declarations, had touched him just as feverishly.

But that had been in the beginning of their relationship, soon after they'd met. Their passion had burned bright and hot for that week and then Neji, so he told Sasuke, had felt as if they were moving too fast. He wanted to dial back, take things slower. Sasuke had complied, ready to do anything Neji wanted. If the man needed space, then Sasuke would show that he could be understanding and give him space.

That was where they stood now, except Neji seemed to require more and more space as time wore on. He called less often with each week that passed and had only consented to make love with Sasuke twice since their first brilliant week together, both times at Sasuke's apartment. Sasuke had never been invited to Neji's place in Jersey. Sasuke was deathly afraid that Neji was pulling away from him entirely, that he was losing him.

Sasuke wasn't stupid. He knew he was giving more in this relationship, but sometimes people needed you to give more. Sometimes they just needed to know you'd be there for them, without making demands or judging. Neji wasn't some frivolous kid, out for kicks. He was manager of a major bank, making serious scratch. He was above Sasuke socially. Sasuke, having grown up in the _barrio_ and being a product of the poorer side of life, could not reconcile upper middle class with the trifling behavior he saw daily in his own working class. No, Neji just needed some time.

-oOo-

He found himself parking a block from his building with no memory of navigating the route to get there. This happened often; a person got to thinking and their mind would just run on autopilot for awhile. As Sasuke was reaching beneath the dashboard to retrieve his bag, his phone rang. It was Neji.

He debated letting it ring for all of five seconds. It would give the man a taste of his own medicine, but Sasuke's pride was too undermined by his love for the man to not answer when Neji deigned to call. "Hello?"

"It's Neji. Meet me in twenty minutes."

"Where? Is something wrong?"

"At the park."

Sasuke thought a moment. "The one around the corner from my place? Why don't we just meet at my apartment? I just pulled up and we can-"

"No. The park. Twenty minutes." The line went dead.

Sasuke sat staring at his phone, one leg out of the car. Frowning, he pocketed it and got out of the car.

His apartment building wasn't fancy or particularly well-maintained. The elevator smelled like piss. He got out on his floor, tensed in case his neighbor was hanging around. He wasn't. Sasuke entered his apartment quickly, set his bag down and left again, locking the door with a jangle of keys he couldn't hide.

His neighbor heard and cracked his door. "Oh, Sasuke. I thought I heard you. How-"

Sasuke hunched his shoulders and took the stairs, ignoring the man. He had a distant idea that his neighbor was attracted to him. The guy went out of his way to speak to Sasuke, smile at him, invite him in for dinner, but it meant nothing. Sasuke wasn't interested in his neighbor. Neji filled his mind and was all he thought about.

He thought about just what it was that made him love Neji as he walked briskly to the small concrete park a few blocks from where he lived.

Sasuke supposed the thing that had flattered him the most was how refined Neji was. The idea that he'd been able to catch the eye of someone like that had his heart hammering each and every time he thought about it. Neji was from money, ran in the money circles, drove a hot little corvette… Sasuke had nothing material to recommend him. He made forty-five grand a year. If Neji was into him then it had to be because of Sasuke's personality, right?

Uchiha Sasuke hadn't looked in a mirror for awhile. Why bother? All he'd see was an aging Puerto Rican cop running to fat who could still boast a healthy head of hair. He never saw anything else. He hadn't dated in years because he never had the time and relationships went nowhere these days. The men he did interact with at the stray bar or on the job did not appeal to him at all. He might, on occasion, go to the trouble of picking up a fuck outside a bar for an hour, but his budget generally saw to it that his own hand sufficed. Therefore, he couldn't fathom that he might be attractive to some one as gorgeous as Neji. The man wore the best rags, probably had weekly spa appointments and shit like that. It stood to reason he normally went out with equally well-groomed people. Sasuke was none of that, would never be any of that.

What he thought, secretly, was that Neji had become jaded with his usual crowds. He wanted something more real and down to earth. Neji saw that in Sasuke, and the elation of being wanted for one's self was a large part of why Sasuke was so obsessively in love with the man. Neji had come into his life, had connected with him, and had shown himself to be on the same wavelength as Sasuke. At least as far as relationships. They never really got a chance to hang out together because they both worked long hours, but soft plans had been made for claiming some vacation time together.

* * *

The park had a few black teens sitting around by the hoops, nothing more. They eyed Sasuke's uniform, halting their conversation to see if they'd be hustled. Sasuke recognized them as faces from the neighborhood. He even knew where one or two of them lived. His practiced eye picked out the one face that wasn't from this neighborhood. He spotted the heat the youth was packing and kept his eye trained on him as he put his hands in his pockets. The young man said something to his homies and rolled right on, leaving his group behind. The rest of the group decided to tough it out a few minutes more, making the point that they weren't going to let Sasuke run them out of the park. They got up and left together some ten minutes later. Only then did Sasuke turn and lean one shoulder against the chain link fence. He checked his watch.

Eleven. Neji could only want to meet so late to discuss something important. Maybe he'd talk about why he'd been so distant lately. Sasuke could be a good listener. Hell, he'd never been one for idle chatter, only making long speeches or talking at length with his younger partner. He'd done his best to give Neji the space he needed, but not communicating with the man for all these weeks had ripped him raw inside. He hoped that would end tonight. Sasuke did a quick mental inventory of the state his apartment was in. He recalled things lying around, laundry that needed to be done. Not the most conducive environment for sex, but Neji had withstood it before. Sasuke then cupped a palm to his nose and mouth, exhaling and inhaling in rapid succession. His breath smelled of the food he'd just eaten.

He found an angel mint in his pants pocket and let it dissolve in his mouth as he checked his watch again. Fifteen minutes since Neji had called. The man was punctual.

And here he came in his black corvette, double parking and throwing on his blinkers. Sasuke frowned; that implied this would be a short meeting, but then why hadn't Neji said what he needed to say over the phone? Why go to the trouble of coming down here? He pushed off from the fence, strolling toward Neji as the latter stepped out of his car.

Neji always moved with a purpose. Sasuke catalogued his clothes in one glance, the way he did with everyone. Gray three-piece suit, blue dress shirt, red tie. Dark shoes. Long hair gathered into some kind of intricately braided tail that lay sleekly between his shoulder blades. Neji was in the process of buttoning his suit jacket as he approached Sasuke. The man looked neither left nor right, but kept his gaze on Sasuke as he closed the distance.

Sasuke saw immediately that now would be an inappropriate time to try and greet Neji with anything warmer than hello. "'Sup," he said as Neji came to a stop. "You okay?"

"Fine," Neji nodded. He paused a moment, noting the gun on Sasuke's hip. He knew the man was off duty by now, so he hadn't really been expecting it. Sasuke would never hurt him, not ordinarily, but what he had to say… Neji met Sasuke's eyes and decided to just get on with it. "It's over."

Sasuke cocked his head, a furrow between his black brows. "What's over?"

"This," Neji said impatiently, gesturing with a hand back and forth between them. "Us. You and me. It's over."

It had been Sasuke's worse fear while Neji had needed space. He'd feared that this was what Neji had needed space for, but Neji was the one who'd sought him out, who'd approached him, who'd said he needed him.

Once, when Sasuke had been home when he was a kid, he'd seen some stupid Charlie Brown special. He could only assume it had been Halloween, because that black-haired, ball-stealing bitch (Luca? Lorie? Lara?) had been scooping the innards out of a big pumpkin. To this day, Sasuke remembered the sound that shit had made when she dropped it next to the pumpkin: _splat._ Why he remembered it he didn't know, but just then he felt like that pumpkin, like Neji had efficiently scooped everything inside of him out to leave it steaming on the pavement with a _splat_ sound. He said nothing, though he was shaking where he stood. He made his face blank and bland, his eyes flat and abstract. His cop face. Neji was speaking.

"I'm getting married. I know I should have told you, but, well, I'm telling you now. I don't plan on being unfaithful to her and-"

Sasuke's head jutted forward, eyes squinted in disbelief. "Wait, what? _Her_?"

Neji met the black eyes without flinching. "Yes. Her. I'm getting married next week."

"I guess the fact that you're bi was something else you neglected to tell me?" Sasuke spat. He spun away from Neji, putting his hands on his hips. His stomach was burning and he dearly wanted to fire his gun.

"I'm not, actually. But I need to think about my future and my life."

Sasuke whirled around again, eyes glaring. "You swine. You're going to throw away what we have for some cunt you don't even want because of what other people _think_? That's why you're hurting me like this?"

"What do we have, Sasuke?" Neji asked. He was contemptuous. "We met two months ago, fucked for a week until I came to my senses, and I've been trying to break it off ever since." Then, deciding it was the only way to make sure the cop didn't pursue him, he said, "I used you, all right? My own boyfriend left and I needed someone. You were there, you were good-looking… I went with it," Neji said with an uncomfortable shrug. "But it wasn't more than that."

Sasuke, back turned again, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He was visited by an urge to scream, the pain was that intense. His gun was a heavy, beckoning weight on his hip. His heart knocked against his ribs, but he did not give himself away. "You said you loved me," he bit out in rage.

Neji eyed the stiff, broad back, the pleats still visible in the uniform from when it had been ironed that morning. "I said a lot of things. Doesn't mean they were true." He waited a few seconds. "I'm trying to do the right thing by telling you in person, but I mean it. It's over. I won't answer if you call… and… if you… you know… try anything, I have lawyers."

Sasuke would have laughed at this display of fear, but he was hurting too much. Right now he could scarcely stand, much less laugh. He stood there, trying to maintain his pride, aware that everything between him and Neji had been largely in his head. Neji had never felt the same, hadn't even wanted him. Sasuke had been lied to. Used. The only reason he wasn't rearranging Neji's face right now was because he still loved him. However false their relationship had been, Sasuke's feelings were real. It was what was killing him now. Oh, but when his love abated…

After some minutes had passed in silence, Sasuke heard Neji's footsteps walking away. He heard the car door open, close shut. The car left with a mild rev of the engine.

And now he broke, now he sank to the balls of his feet and rested the fingertips of one hand on the ground as he dropped his face into the other hand. The pain, unleashed, worked him over righteously.

* * *

Translations:

_Boricua_ \- Puerto Rican

_Nada_. La vida - Nothing. Life.

_Barrio_ \- Spanish word for ghetto


	2. Naruto

* * *

 

**Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

* * *

 

Naruto had stood in his hall a moment, equal parts amused and hurt that his neighbor, Sasuke, had literally run away from him. Was he that irritating?

Deciding he was hungry, he'd locked his door and taken a short walk to McDonald's. He got his standard double cheeseburger meal and proceeded home again. On his way back, he passed the park and felt an impulse to eat his late dinner there, though the place was deserted. He sat on one of the benches and opened the warm white bag. As he did so, he saw the words _'I'm lovin' it_ ' on the paper.

It was the franchise's catchphrase or something, but Naruto had always hated it. The word 'love' had no present continuous. You either loved something or you didn't. As a writer he was conscious of these things. It never ceased to annoy him how people with money enough to employ proper grammar failed to use it. He'd had to stop watching some of his favorite soaps because they refused to get the nominative and objective forms of pronouns correct. But he hadn't stopped in the park to think about the many ways the English language was bastardized. He'd come to think about his fascinating neighbor.

Uchiha Sasuke. Naruto was obsessed. Quietly, fiercely obsessed with the man. He wanted him with a passion that was arguably demoralizing, certainly unhealthy. However, he was too practical and self-conscious to do more than bombard Sasuke with a bunch of friendly greetings that even he could see annoyed the guy. Sasuke clearly wasn't interested so there was no reason to press the issue. Naruto, being that he worked from home, regularly spent much of his day internalizing his unrequited love and the sweet pain it brought him. He lived long, drawn-out fantasies of him and Sasuke together, all in his mind, and then turned these into the successful gay romances he wrote. And then, when all of Sasuke's imagined attributes had been picked over thoroughly, Naruto would lie in bed at night and think of all the attributes he _knew_ Sasuke had and that made him love the guy.

Above all, Sasuke was a fair and just cop. He was dedicated to performing his job well, though he was dissatisfied. Naruto had overheard Sasuke telling a visitor that he'd failed his detective exam for 'some shit reason or the other, probably because I'm a minority.' Later, Naruto had come to know that the visitor was Sasuke's older brother. Naruto had checked him out thoroughly under the guise of getting his mail. A fox if ever he'd seen one, prettier than Sasuke even, but not what Naruto wanted.

Though Sasuke was as withdrawn as Naruto was, he'd still been able to glean certain things about the cop. Naruto had learned, for instance, that Sasuke was devoted to his family. He was someone who always saw a task through and who was incredibly smart, though this last wasn't obvious to someone who wasn't looking. Naruto was definitely looking. He'd gone so far as to get the mailman to hand him Sasuke's mail once, saying he'd give it to him. There had been all sorts of magazines in Japanese, Spanish, and Dutch. He'd managed to listen in on a few conversations between Sasuke and his brother and discovered the subject matter to be nothing short of captivating.

Beyond that, Naruto had never seen the man behave insultingly to anyone, no matter how shitty his day had been. And he'd seen Sasuke come home bloody a few times, so he knew his neighbor probably had days that were very shitty indeed.

Lastly, and this was what made Sasuke so fabulously endearing, was how lonely the cop obviously was. He kept it hidden, but it was there, plain as his mop of black hair, to Naruto's keen eyes. He was lonely himself and quickly recognized the trait in Sasuke.

-oOo-

Naruto finished his food and threw his bag and cup in the garbage can that stood at the park entrance. He walked home quickly, not wanting to remain outside past midnight if he didn't have to. Come to think of it, he didn't normally go out this late at night. His neighborhood wasn't that great and his skin color wasn't that common around here. He could handle himself, but he knew he'd never outrun a bullet.

Still, just as he was rounding the corner to his block, he smiled to himself. He saw Sasuke as a sort of tragic romantic hero. Bravely keeping his loneliness to himself as he battled crime and helped old ladies cross the street. Desperate for love, yet not receiving it. Naruto issued a small, soft laugh. _I could give you all the love you want, Sasuke, if only you'd see me as more than an annoyance._

As he did everyday, Naruto tried to think of ways to approach Sasuke that didn't get on the man's nerves. Sasuke hadn't yet told Naruto to leave him alone, opting to simply walk away instead of being rude, but it had to be only a matter of time until Naruto went too far in his well-meant greetings. How could he make himself appear more desirable?

These thoughts were driven from his mind as he entered the squeaky door to his building and discovered Sasuke throwing up in the vestibule, down on his hands and knees. Naruto rushed to his side. "Sasuke!"

"Leave- _urk_ … leave me alone," Sasuke managed after he'd thrown up again. "Oh god, just leave me alone."

"Stop being ridiculous," Naruto cried, glancing around. The place was deserted. He definitely couldn't lift Sasuke. "You're sick and need help. Can you make it to the elevator?"

"I'm not sick." Sasuke remained on his hands and knees, leaning over his vomit with his eyes closed. The stuff dripped from his nose. Naruto saw partially digested beans and stray grains of rice in the lumpy puddle.

"Fine," Naruto said soothingly. "You're not sick. Whatever you are, you can't stay here."

Apparently agreeing with him, Sasuke stood and went to the wall, leaning his forearm there, and his head on his forearm. Naruto carefully sidestepped the puddle of vomit to rest a light hand on Sasuke's back. Sasuke allowed the touch and Naruto grew bolder, letting his hand rest completely on the warm, solid flesh beneath the blue uniform shirt. He gave a small rub, stopped, then another when Sasuke didn't move away. He tried to peer into Sasuke's face but Sasuke kept his head turned into his shoulder.

Without warning, a keening, hair-raising howl came from somewhere deep in Sasuke. Naruto suddenly had his hands full as Sasuke turned violently to him and leaned on his neck. Naruto thought he was being attacked. Then he thought Sasuke was being sick again. Finally he realized, with utter stupefaction, that Sasuke was crying… rather hysterically at that, and Naruto felt every protective instinct rear up in him in a tidal wave of ferocious love. He gathered Sasuke to him as much as he was able and made mothering sounds of comfort.

As he shushed and cooed to Sasuke, Naruto reasoned that he was being handed an opportunity. Sasuke had been done some grievous wrong or else had received some calamitous news and needed a shoulder to lean on. By the grace of McDonald's, Naruto was here to provide it for him. He had been granted his wish; he could show Sasuke that there was more to him than overly friendly greetings.

Sasuke had to be seventy-five pounds heavier than Naruto if he was an ounce, with several inches on him to boot. Nevertheless, Naruto began the laborious process of trying to steer Sasuke toward the elevator and up to the secure confines of Naruto's apartment. There, he'd have Sasuke all to himself. He'd be free to properly nurse him through whatever tragedy had befallen him.

Naruto led the way, with Sasuke shuffling, seemingly senseless to his surroundings as he continued to cry in soft, heartbroken sobs. A few tears fell on Naruto's forearm. They were hot enough to make Naruto want to howl right along with Sasuke, so eloquently did they embody the cop's misery.

In the elevator, Sasuke seemed to quiet down a little. Naruto was distressed to see this. He wanted Sasuke to need him just a little longer, as it would allow Naruto to nurture his poor tender feelings.

But Sasuke was far from fine, it turned out. He pushed away from Naruto to lean his back against the opposite side of the empty elevator. His head went back, his eyes closed and thus Naruto was able to see the tears that still slipped free of the lids. Sasuke really was in a state as his breaths shuddered in and out of him, sometimes shaking his broad shoulders as silent sobs wracked him. Sasuke's face sometimes crumpled into masks of grief so wrenching that Naruto was almost hypnotized by them, so out of character were they for the stalwart neighbor he thought he knew. If Naruto could somehow learn the cause of this display he would be guaranteed an exciting evening indeed… with the added bonus of Sasuke perhaps seeing him in a friendlier light henceforth.

-oOo-

Naruto led Sasuke past the cop's own door expecting the man to stop and enter his apartment. He didn't. Instead, Sasuke followed Naruto docilely to the door Naruto called home, waited until it was unlocked, then went inside behind the shorter man. No words were said just then.

Sasuke took in the neat living room lit only by a streetlamp outside, the glimpse of the kitchen visible and the hall leading to the one bedroom all in the time it took him to blink his wet eyes twice. Naruto saw this perusal then gestured for Sasuke to sit down. Sasuke did. Naruto bustled away to get him some water.

Naruto actually did more than that. He got a large, flower-patterned tray and set a pretty doily in it. He then proceeded to set out fresh homemade peanut butter brownies, milk, and the aforementioned water, complete with a slice of lime sitting on the rim of the glass. He carried this all in to Sasuke.

He found the man with his head in his hands. Naruto set the stray on the end table near Sasuke's right side before taking the loveseat opposite him. He waited for whatever would happen next with bated breath.

The smell of the brownies seemed to bring Sasuke around. The man first halted his sniffles, then went still, then slowly turned his head toward the plate of brownies. He looked at them a moment before reaching over and lifting the entire tray onto his lap. He took a brownie, sniffed it, dunked it boldly in the large glass of milk several times, and shoved half of it into his mouth. A soft moan escaped him.

"I don't like sweets," Sasuke said as he religiously dunked the other half, wetting his fingertips.

Naruto smiled in bewilderment. "But?"

"But these aren't sweets. These are amazing."

Naruto smiled in pleasure. "Thank you. I made them myself."

The second brownie was being consumed, drenched in milk. Naruto noticed that Sasuke gently sucked each brownie free of excess milk before chomping down on it. What had been an entire batch of the things, the contents of an entire pan, was now little more than crumbs. Sasuke used a broad thumb to press onto these moist crumbs, and ate whatever stuck to the digit. The plate was clean, the milk gone and the water going down Sasuke's throat as Naruto watched. The tray was set aside on the end table again. Sasuke belched quietly into his fist.

The silence was unnatural. Naruto quite enjoyed it, since Sasuke wasn't trying to leave. He only stared down at the floor without blinking. Naruto felt that the dark living room in which they sat was oppressive, ominous with possibility, fraught with tension.

But the silence continued. Nothing else happened except that Sasuke eventually stood up. He began heading for the door.

Naruto was on his feet instantly, walking quickly behind Sasuke. "Don't go. You can stay and tell me what's wrong." He caught up to Sasuke at the door, where they both stopped.

Sasuke seemed to consider and discard a thought as he briefly shook his head. Without answering Naruto, he put his hand on the knob. Naruto put is hand over Sasuke's. "Let me help you," Naruto said quietly. "I'm not all bad, I promise. Please."

Again Sasuke hesitated. "You can't help me."

Naruto quelled his happiness at getting a response. "You don't know that. Let me try, give me a chance."

They stood in the dark, their hands on the knob. Sasuke's face was turned toward Naruto, looking down into his earnest blue eyes. Naruto stood pressed to his side, ready to say anything that would make Sasuke stay. "Please," he said again.

Sasuke leaned down slowly, bringing their faces nose to nose. It seemed to Naruto that Sasuke intended to say something, but he didn't. Naruto waited. Sasuke became aware of the hand on his where he grasped the knob, and turned his wrist, grabbing Naruto's hand instead.

Naruto felt himself pulled against the wide chest he'd fantasized about so often, felt his head cupped in a large palm, and then Sasuke's brownie-flavored tongue was in his mouth. It delved deep, and Naruto was helpless not to issue a whimper that embarrassed him with its needy sound.

-oOo-

It was like being caught in a tornado, Naruto decided. Or how he imagined such an event would feel. As a writer, he strove to explain most experiences as he would on paper. He imagined that being caught in a tornado would be terrifying to the extreme: one would be at the mercy of a force of nature many times stronger than one's self; up would be down and vice versa; there would be no way to guarantee if one survived contact with the tornado; and there was no hope of getting away until the tornado set you down, either dead or alive.

Yes, letting Sasuke slake his passion on him was just like that, in every way.

Sasuke lifted him as he kissed him, so that Naruto's head was higher than his. He lifted him in such a way –beneath his arms, as if he was a child- that Naruto was made aware of the vast difference in their bodies and his own deliberate helplessness in the situation. Acting helpless seasoned his own passion to unbearable sweetness. Sasuke's arms moved to Naruto's waist, holding him pressed to his body. He released Naruto's lips long enough to say a few words.

"I don't want to be alone," Sasuke said gruffly as Naruto pressed kisses around his face, cupping his cheeks.

"You're not. I'm here."

Sasuke carried him easily, his breathing only taxed from the force of his need and the recent kisses. In the bedroom, Naruto saw his eyes sweep back and forth, taking in the décor and whatever else cops usually noted. He allowed Naruto to trap his mouth again, kissing him hungrily, before breaking the kiss once more. "Protection?" Sasuke asked.

"Drawer. There." Naruto could not stop kissing those gorgeous, wonderfully masculine lips. It occurred to him that he was living out one of his fantasies with Sasuke, but the reality was so much better that this idea was blown away. Sasuke didn't put him down, kissing Naruto as he went to the drawer and used one hand to open it and retrieve the box of studded condoms. He only paused to flip the box in his hand, reading the back for a second, before glancing up at Naruto. Sasuke smelled so good, like Brute. Naruto couldn't keep from burying his face in his thick neck and inhaling deeply.

Sasuke let that go on, rubbing Naruto's hair, kissing it, before he tipped his chin up to kiss his pliant mouth again. They were kisses born of Sasuke's frightful pain and received by Naruto's deep love, his lonely heart. To say the kisses scorched would have been an understatement of colossal proportions. It weakened them while strengthening them, unmanned them while making them bold. Sasuke glutted himself on Naruto's willing mouth, feasted on the active tongue. At last, he picked his head up to look Naruto in the eye. There was a lamp on in this room that allowed a candid exploration of each other's faces for the first time tonight. The scrutiny was brief, but one of the moments that punctuated the night.

Naruto took in the bold features. Sasuke's hair was longer in front, spiky bangs obscuring his brow, and hanging long to cover his cheeks and ears. The eyes were generously lashed, yet detracted in no way from Sasuke's overwhelming masculinity. Evidence of his recent crying was visible from the tear tracks on his face. The nose was straight, the mouth that of a creature born to use it. The mouth was purely carnal, Naruto decided, intensely sexual in the way it was so classically shaped, faintly pink.

At 5'9, Naruto would have had to tilt his head to study Sasuke, but held as he was, he was able to look down. At this proximity, he felt small. Especially since Sasuke was twice as wide as he was. Naruto was lean, though by no means weak. He wondered what Sasuke thought of his face, if Sasuke thought he was attractive at all.

Sasuke dropped his eyes briefly to the condoms in his hand again, then held the small box between his teeth as he began undoing his shirt.

Naruto saw a short-sleeved undershirt as the blue shirt was cast aside on a chair. Sasuke reached behind his head to grab a fistful of this undershirt behind his neck and tugged the thing forward and off. He stood topless, his chest muscles jumping in the lamplight as he wadded up his undershirt to throw after his blue one. His hands went to the buckle holding his gun holster, but here Naruto stopped him.

My god, Naruto thought as he slid from Sasuke's arms. How Sasuke looked, with his bare upper half, and his uniform pants clinging to his powerful legs… and the gun sitting low on his hips... my god. He felt his mouth literally begin to water, nearly drooling as dramatically as a cartoon character. He reached his hands out tentatively to touch that bulging chest, but Sasuke grabbed his wrists and pulled him close again, crushing Naruto in an embrace as he brought his face down to his.

He didn't kiss Naruto. Sasuke only kept his mouth hovering near the smaller man's as he dropped his hand to his gun holster again and succeeded in undoing it finally. He set it down on the floor after he'd walked with Naruto to the bed. He rested one knee on the mattress, holding Naruto firmly around the waist. Now he kissed him.

Naruto had never been kissed like this, so thoroughly and ravenously. He almost felt like he was one of the peanut butter brownies from earlier. Sasuke had attacked those as if he'd never seen food and here he was treating Naruto the same way, as if he'd never had sex. Certainly, Sasuke was a controlled individual from what Naruto saw, too controlled to let bad news drive him to sleeping with his neighbor. It stood to reason that Sasuke must have wanted him on some level then. Naruto's being hummed in pleasure at this fleeting thought.

They sank to the mattress slowly, Sasuke's hands hot and rough on Naruto's body. Naruto felt crushed by Sasuke's greater weight for a moment, until Sasuke supported himself on his elbows. Naruto, still fully clothed, lifted his legs to cradle Sasuke's hips. He felt the unbelievable erection immediately, and rolled his own hips upward, humping it with his own hardness, hissing at the way the desire already pulsing in his body sharpened.

Sasuke felt it too. He sat up on his heels, pulling Naruto with him. Naruto's shirt was whisked off over his head before he was pushed backward to the mattress again. Sasuke had Naruto's jeans unbuttoned, unzipped and off of him in three seconds, leaving Naruto naked for his smoldering gaze.

Naruto wasn't shy about his body. He knew he was in shape. His body was wiry, no bulging muscles, but incredibly toned and fit. Still, the way Sasuke's eyes seemed to burn on his skin left him breathless. He resisted the urge to pull a pillow over his nudity.

But then Sasuke fell forward on him and that was the end of his bashfulness. He couldn't be bashful, not in the face of Sasuke's blatant need of him.

Sasuke's mouth was hot where it lavished attention on Naruto's throat. He murmured something in Spanish, the words fluid and as ardent as his hands were where they rubbed Naruto's hips. The feel of Sasuke's bare chest against Naruto's lit a fire of lust in them both, and they were both aware of Naruto gushing precum on Sasuke's pants.

One moaned and the other arched upward. A large hand ran the length of one bare thigh where it rested against a belted waist. One rose up to settle more comfortably on the other and all the while deep, wet kisses were shared as the blood pounded in their ears.

Sasuke humped Naruto strongly, and Naruto liked the way Sasuke's belt dug into his cock. He liked the slightly rough feel of Sasuke's pants and the way Sasuke's back muscles rippled beneath his palms. He couldn't keep from groaning as each forward push of Sasuke's hips brought Naruto closer to orgasm; whatever Sasuke was packing felt enormous.

Naruto felt a surge of pressure, pleasure building, and went rigid. He was seconds from coming. Sasuke stopped moving his hips and became still, lifting his face from Naruto's to stare down at him. "Hold on for me," he told the gasping Naruto in a low voice. "I want to be inside you when you come."

They breathed, each tense, as Naruto hovered on the brink, teetering on the edge of falling… and then the pleasure receded somewhat and Naruto was easing down from that edge. They relaxed slowly, their muscles loosening.

* * *

Sasuke lost no time. He knelt on the bed and had his pants open and off quickly. He asked something that Naruto didn't catch, staring at Sasuke's cock as he was. Sasuke gave up trying to get an answer and searched the bedside tables standing on either side of the bed until he found what he wanted.

Sasuke's cock bobbed and swayed with his search. Naruto estimated that it was thicker than his own slender wrist and the length was certainly greater than anything he'd ever received. For a moment he worried that he'd be partaking in a scenario that was so overdone in gay erotica as to be cliché. But there was no help for it, was there? Sasuke had what he had and Naruto, apparently, would be playing the role of-

Naruto's attention switched gears at feeling Sasuke press a hand drenched with lube between his lower cheeks. A finger pushed against his anus, breaching Naruto's sphincter. Naruto tried to relax, but a second finger was already working its way in, stretching Naruto before he had a chance to adjust. But for the grace of lube, Naruto was sure he'd have been injured. As it was, the pain skated at the edge of uncomfortable, still within the boundaries of pleasure. He groaned lustily, lifting his knees high in acceptance.

Sasuke corkscrewed his fingers in and out of Naruto roughly, grunting when he tried to spread them. Naruto was incredibly tight. He squeezed his ass muscles around Sasuke's intruding fingers until Sasuke jerked Naruto's hips impatiently and forced his sphincter wider.

"Uuhng!" Naruto cried. But he didn't tell Sasuke to stop. Just the opposite. "Yes…"

Sasuke took this as his cue. He reached for the lube he'd dropped on the mattress and coated himself liberally. He set the bottle on the table by the bed and took hold of Naruto's hips again. Naruto hadn't seen when he'd donned the condom, but it was on, appearing to strangle Sasuke's cock half way down where it ended. Truth be told, the thing looked like it was ready to split. That was all Naruto saw before Sasuke drove forward and began shoving his way into Naruto's body.

Naruto had tensed reflexively. The way Sasuke just came at him with no further prepping scared him, not to mention the size of Sasuke's tool. Add to that the fact that Naruto hadn't had sex with a man in at least five years and it was no wonder he clenched his muscles protectively.

Sasuke battered at Naruto's puckered hole while Naruto tried to temper his movements by pushing at him. "Sasuke, wait please… I'm not ready."

"Stop fighting me," Sasuke growled.

Before Naruto could attempt to do so, Sasuke reached over the side of the bed and came back up with his department issue handcuffs. Naruto's eyes widened at this, even as Sasuke snapped one bracelet around his right wrist. "What are you doing?" he yelped.

Naruto's headboard consisted of a single brass bar four inches in circumference. Sasuke pulled Naruto's hand up by the cuff, passed the other end of the cuff behind the bar and then snapped it on his left hand. The cuffs jangled against the bar as Naruto jerked on them.

Sasuke leaned down and held Naruto's jaw with one hand, looking into his panicked eyes. "I'm sorry. I just really need you right now and I can't be bothered with your prissiness. I'll try not to hurt you. Now, _relax._ I don't top often and I'm not that great at it."

Naruto tried to be still, grateful for the explanation, and even more calmed by the phrase 'I just need you right now.' Of course. He would be as accommodating and receptive as possible. "Just… go slowly, please," he advised Sasuke with a hiss. Sasuke was already entering him, and it hurt. "Let me adjust."

Sasuke waited a beat, then pushed forward again. He held Naruto's hips steady as Naruto grabbed hold of the brass bar above his head. Sasuke gave Naruto as much time as he could, but the need to move was too great. He began thrusting, using just the first few inches of his cock to stimulate Naruto's prostate.

It was a good thing Naruto was chained to the brass bar because he nearly jumped from the bed entirely. His hips jerked free of Sasuke's hands and nearly free of his cock as well, but Sasuke quickly took hold of Naruto again and kept him still. Naruto yelled loudly in acute pleasure, over and over again as Sasuke battered against his prostate unmercifully. Naruto's hands gripped the bar by his head as he tried to pull himself off Sasuke's cock, anything to gain relief, but Sasuke gave a last hard shove and that had Naruto coming with a hoarse scream, spurting profusely.

Sasuke thrust deeply at the moment of Naruto's climax, judging that the smaller man would be too distracted by his orgasm to notice any additional pain. He buried himself to the hilt in a single harsh move and stifled his own yell of pleasure.

Naruto did notice. His head tossed as he bucked wildly, trying to be free. "Oh," he cried in amazement. "Oh, _god!_ "

Sasuke gathered him close, covering as much of Naruto's quivering body as he could. When he was sure that there was no possible way for Naruto to move, he began pumping his hips in long, firm strokes.

He rode Naruto hard. Extremely hard.

Naruto had to let go of the bass bar or his fingers would have been broken; the bar slammed repeatedly into the wall with savage force, making the handcuffs rattle loudly in accompaniment.

Sasuke's face was nestled in Naruto's neck. Naruto felt the way his hot breath washed over his clavicle and closed his eyes, surrendering to Sasuke's monstrously decadent lovemaking. All he could do was hang on to the racing hips with his legs as tightly as he could and close his glazed eyes. He was hard again, thanks to the thick cock slamming in and out of him. His rectum felt raw and abused, by both the depth and strength of Sasuke's thrusts, but dear god was he flying! Sasuke was taking him over the horizon with pleasure. The harder Sasuke rode him, the louder he yelled, until Naruto's screams, the brass bar banging, and Sasuke's low grunting made for a cacophony of discordant noise that deafened them both. A few times Naruto tried to catch his breath, to roll with the insane pleasure and dizzying pain, but screaming was the only way he could stand it. It helped that Sasuke was holding him so closely. He felt close to shattering at those devastating thrusts.

It was over quicker than Naruto would have thought. Sasuke rested for about twenty minutes, not bothering to remove his face from Naruto's neck. Naruto realized that he'd come again sometime during that storm of sex, since his stomach was coated in his cum. Even soft, Sasuke filled his ass unbearably. He was so thick that he didn't even slip out, though Naruto could feel cum oozing onto the sheets. The condom must have indeed split.

Sasuke kissed Naruto suddenly, rearing up to locate his mouth. Naruto's lips were dry from screaming so much, but Sasuke took time to moisten them with his own, kissing gently, but insistently. Naruto wished his hands were free to hold Sasuke closer, but that wasn't to be. He settled for kissing Sasuke back as thoroughly as he was able to.

Naruto groaned through the kiss as he felt Sasuke growing hard again inside him. He twisted and writhed and squirmed, panting at the sheer size. It could not possibly be normal to have such a cock. The man belonged in porn movies with that thing.

Sasuke withdrew, making Naruto sigh richly in relief. He reached over the side of the bed again and brought up the key to the cuffs. He undid one bracelet, turned Naruto on his stomach, then cuffed him again. Naruto was too tired to protest. He'd thought maybe Sasuke had had enough, but he couldn't honestly complain. He'd be crazy to protest all this time with the cop he dreamed of nightly.

The penetration this time came with no warning, sliding in and filling Naruto to bursting. Naruto raised himself on his knees and Sasuke moved with him, letting him get comfortable. Then he grabbed Naruto's hips and proceeded to start all over again with those hard, deep thrusts, jerking Naruto backward for each one and doubling the impact.

Naruto screamed into his pillow until his voice was gone. He screamed even then. His cock was engorged to the point of pain, leaking one steady stream of cum onto his sheets as Sasuke fucked him with ruthless violence. Naruto sobbed unrestrainedly.

And still, when Sasuke came again, exploding deep inside Naruto with enough force to have his ass overflowing with cum, it wasn't over. Sasuke pulled out and spent long minutes drinking Naruto's dripping hole free of all fluids, shocking the chained man at this disregard for safe sex and making him find his voice again. Naruto fairly shrieked at this forbidden pleasure, something he'd never experienced.

Sasuke reached over Naruto when he was done and unlocked the handcuffs. Naruto's hands dropped weakly to the bed, but Sasuke was already turning him back over and pressing his knees to his chest. Naruto was too spent to resist. He was half conscious. He came alert when Sasuke entered him yet again.

Naruto's legs were thrown over Sasuke's shoulders, leaving him defenseless to the latter's wildly pounding hips. Sasuke loomed over him like some pagan God of yore, eyes black as sin and just as alluring. He watched Naruto whining with pitiless unconcern, intent on using his lithe body while he had it. Naruto made choked sounds that may have been an attempt at speech, but Sasuke only screwed him faster and harder, braced on his palms.

Eventually he let Naruto bring his legs down so that they were around Sasuke's waist. Naruto tugged on Sasuke's sweating shoulders and the cop relented, coming down so that Naruto could hold him. He didn't stop thrusting and, when he came long minutes later, he didn't immediately shake Naruto's arms off.

Naruto held him and murmured softly, though he was the one who needed comforting after the sex he'd just survived. "Okay. It's okay. I've got you," he whispered to the black hair nestled in his neck again. "I'm right here."

Sasuke allowed this. Naruto felt a few tears land on his neck and tightened his embrace. He combed his hands through the black hair again and again until Sasuke's muscles un-knotted and the big man completely relaxed on him. Sasuke was snoring a short time later.

Naruto smiled into Sasuke's hair and went to sleep himself. He dreamed of long days spent with his cop and even longer nights.

* * *

The next morning Sasuke was gone. Naruto saw that it was after nine and guessed his lover had left hours ago. The man had a job, after all. Naruto was thankful for being able to work his own hours, on his own schedule. He turned over leisurely, wincing at the flare of pain in his ass that spread to the rest of his body. Smiling lazily, Naruto decided then and there to spend the rest of the day in bed. He'd order lunch from the deli and have it delivered and only get up to shower close to the time he knew Sasuke would be home from work.

It was a plan. Maybe Sasuke would tell him what had happened yesterday to make him finally turn to the one who'd secretly loved him for over a year. Maybe not. Maybe he would tumble Naruto right back into bed and give a repeat performance of last night.

An envelope, unmarked, caught Naruto's eye. It was on the bedside table, under the bottle of lube and the box of condoms. Naruto reached for it, turning it this way and that. No name. He sniffed.

_Brute._

_Sasuke_ , Naruto thought with a smile. Before he could open it, his doorbell rang insistently. Naruto quickly wrapped his nakedness with his soiled sheet and hobbled down the hall to the apartment door. He saw through the peephole that it was his best friend in all the world. Grinning now, he swung the door open wide.


	3. Sakura

 

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

* * *

_"Oh no, I do not hook up, up I fall deep,"_ Sakura sang at the top of her lungs. _"'Cause the more that you try, the harder I'll fight... to saaaa-aaay, goodnight."_

She shut the shower off and shimmied her way to the sink, bopping to the rest of the song as she swiped fog off her mirror. Apple-green eyes alive with fun sparkled at her through the smeared reflective surface, crinkling at the corners as she grinned.

She walked nude from her bathroom, humming happily to the last strains of the song as a weather report followed by local news played on the radio. Throwing her closet doors wide, she selected what she'd wear today by the simple expedient of shooting her hand inside and dragging out the first thing she touched. It was a long, thin summer dress, a pink so pale as to be almost white, with hot pink at the very edges of its layered chiffon. "Perfect," she chirped.

In truth, all her clothes were perfect, or so she thought. She never bought anything unless it was perfect to her reckoning. She hopped away to get dressed.

But first…

Sakura went to her vanity and spent an inordinate amount of time rubbing perfumed body butter into every inch of her fair skin that she could reach. She followed up with a healthy spray of matching body mist and drew on a pair of lacy white undies that contained less material than a shoestring. Then she slipped her dress over her head and did up the small zipper in back. She needed no bra. Her breasts were small, perky, and in defiance of gravity.

Sakura sat at her vanity dresser and considered her hair. It was extremely fine, almost whispy, so she wore it in layers around her head, none longer than her neck. Natural, it was a shade of blonde so fair that Sakura darkened it by dying it frosty pink. It was a pale color, one made less abnormal by the few locks of her natural hair color that she left un-dyed to lend a look of having highlights. Overall, her hair was a frothy concoction of femininity that suited the rest of her looks and her personality perfectly.

She was a petite woman, overwhelmingly girlish and pert. She was slim, supple and sensual in a carefree sort of manner. There was a purity to her, a lack of malicious intent or callousness that invariably grated on people's nerves, but Sakura was always so fun loving and impulsive that she usually won these grouchy souls over.

Sakura slipped on a pair of white flip-flops, added frosted lip-gloss to her bow-shaped lips and considered herself ready. She dropped her keys and phone into her tiny purse, checked to make sure she had her metrocard and was out the door on a skip, leaving her radio on through force of habit. It never did to let people think no one was home. Not in the Bronx.

_Today is the day,_ Sakura thought. _I'm finally going to tell him how I really feel._ She gave a small giggle of self-consciousness mixed with her ever-present happiness.

It was Saturday. She didn't have work today, and she was reasonably confident that her best friend would be home at this early hour. The day stretched bright and promising before her. Even if her declaration met with rejection, she told her self that she would still be his friend. They'd been friends since grade school.

-oOo-

At twenty-five, Sakura sometimes wondered why she'd waited so long to share how she felt. Rocking to the clacking, swaying motion of the train, she went over the last several years of her life.

They'd both been more or less gay in high school. Sakura liked to think of herself as bisexual, with the majority of her leanings toward men, but her friend had never been on more than a few dates with girls. He was definitely more gay than bi. In college, when Sakura had finally decided she preferred men, he'd said he would keep his options open. Later still, when he'd begun writing, he'd come to her and asked if she'd aid him in research. She'd agreed, of course.

He'd wanted to write a sex scene between a man and a woman and had wanted some first hand experience. He'd said it would lend authenticity to his work. The episode had been an eye-opener for Sakura in many ways. It told her that her friend hadn't slept with the women he'd dated in school, and it made her realize that she loved him as more than a friend.

That had been about three years ago. She'd played it off at first, unable to reconcile sexual love with the boy she'd grown up with. But the feeling had only grown with time.

Still, she'd hesitated. The years had passed and she'd been loath to spoil their friendship. She'd also harbored a hope that he would come to see her the same way. Last week she'd seen a couple snuggling together while she'd been in line for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park and it had really struck her that she was in her mid-twenties without ever having had a serious relationship. She couldn't say that she was deeply, madly in love with her friend, but love was love, right? She'd decided then and there that she would tell her friend how she really felt on her next day off. Time was wasting.

Sakura got off at her stop and walked for several blocks, aware of men smiling appreciatively at her springy step and _joie de vivre_. She skipped into the entry of her friend's apartment building, wrinkling her nose at the partially dried puddle of vomit near the mailboxes. The elevator stopped at the appropriate floor and she sailed, stomach full of butterflies, down the hall to his door. She kept her finger pressed to the bell for a full minute, giggling at the thought of catching him on the toilet or in the shower.

It surprised her to hear him stumbling to the door almost immediately. She saw the peep hole darken as he looked to see who it was, then the door swung wide.

* * *

"Sakura!" Naruto exclaimed joyfully. "What are you doing here? Come in!"

Sakura pranced inside, his upbeat mood feeding her already high spirits. She noted that he was wrapped in a curiously stained and smelly sheet, and laughed at him. "Were you about to shower?"

Naruto shut the door and turned to drop into an arm chair. He whistled between his teeth, howling in pain and laughing at the same time. He tilted himself sideways, taking pressure off his ass, and folded his legs beneath him. Sakura watched all this with amusement, too intent on her mission today to read the signs in front of her.

"I had plans to laze around in bed today," Naruto said as he picked up a used glass sitting on a tray. He examined it with a fond expression. "But that smile on your face says you've got other plans for me." He set the glass back down. "Spill. What brings you here on one of your precious days off, and before noon no less?"

Sakura's laugh pealed across the apartment, a sound Naruto had always enjoyed. "Stay in bed! Since when? You're dedicated to writing for eight hours each and every day."

Naruto stretched extravagantly, and Sakura absently noticed red marks around both his wrists. "Since I have finally landed the elusive Sasuke," Naruto purred. "Last night was one for the history books, Sugar. _Wait_ till I tell you."

Sakura kept her smile in place, though a lance of pain speared the center of her being.

Sasuke. The neighbor Naruto coveted with a single-minded obsession that was frightening. The man had never given her friend the time of day, not once in the year since he'd moved next door to Naruto. Naruto had crushed on men before, only to get over them in time, so she'd waited patiently for this infatuation to pass as well.

No. Sakura had to be honest, she'd known this was more than an infatuation or a crush for Naruto. He managed to bring Sasuke's name up at some point each time they hung out or spoke on the phone. The other infatuations had lasted a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, but Naruto had been carrying a torch for this Sasuke since the week he moved in a year ago. And it showed no signs of leaving.

She'd gotten a look at Sasuke a few times and frankly did not see anything to engage Naruto's interest. He was a big, hulking, broody individual, with no style or life to him whatsoever. She'd never seen him smile or laugh, or do anything besides look at everyone and everything with flat disinterest. And he was porky to boot.

She took in the gist of what had happened last night with an absent ear, managing to smile and nod, and 'ooh' and 'aah' at the right places. The redness around Naruto's wrists was explained, as were the dishes on the tray that Naruto kept handling. There was an envelope in his lap, something he'd been holding when he'd opened the door for her. He seemed to have forgotten it and she didn't think to mention it.

Sakura was an impulsive, energetic, and sometimes frivolous person, but there were times, usually when she was under great stress, when she had flashes of insight. She always followed these without question and they had never steered her wrong. She had one of these flashes now.

Naruto did not love her the way she loved him and he never would. Not ever. End of story.

She spent some minutes adjusting to this knowledge. She was hurt, yes, but not irreparably so. She was resilient and, most of all, confident enough in herself that she knew she'd get through this bitter disappointment.

But she could not sit here and listen to another moment of Naruto rhapsodizing about the godly wonders of Sasuke. She had her limits. She stood to leave, adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder as she did so.

"Are you going already?" Naruto cried. "But you just got here."

"Well… I think you should stay here and prepare a romantic dinner for you and Sasuke. Pamper yourself today, recover from last night. Me, I think I'll head to Manhattan and see what's what. Maybe take in a poetry reading or a show."

Naruto pouted. "Oh… okay." Then he brightened. "I think I'll make oysters."

Sakura was able to smile a small smile. "Are you sure you want to make him more aggressive in bed? He did cuff you last night. Naruto," Sakura said in real concern. "He could get violent with you. You don't really know him and he's always struck me as a dark person."

Naruto only smiled indulgently, cocking one eyebrow at her. Sakura returned his smile after a moment. Though he didn't look it, Naruto was a deadly Wushu expert. He could have gotten out of those cuffs or had Sasuke unconscious while he was restrained if he'd wanted to. "Right," Sakura said. "I forgot you can take care of yourself. Well then, I'm off." She paused as she considered kissing him goodbye, a quick peck on his cheek the way she always did, but decided that she wanted to get out of there. Naruto returned her farewell distractedly as he became aware of the envelope in his lap. He picked it up. She left then, closing the door firmly behind her.

* * *

 Sakura hit the street and stood taking a few deep breaths, letting the warm breeze of the day wash over her bare arms. It fluttered her hair prettily about her face.

Okay. Plan. She needed a plan to get her through the rest of today. Naruto was upstairs, ecstatic at his dastardly night and the vistas of possibility now open to him and Sasuke. She wouldn't intrude. The first few days and weeks with a new love were universally known to belong exclusively to those two lovers. All else would be ignored. Naruto wanted to share his happiness with her, but she honestly could not stand to hear Sasuke's name one more time. She shuddered slightly just thinking about it.

A tall woman passed Sakura where she stood and an idea, a brilliant, and entirely wonderful idea came to her. _Perfect_ , Sakura thought as she began heading for the train station. _I hope she's available to chat for awhile_ _._

Just before she was about to go down the stairs to the subway, her phone rang. She saw that it was Naruto and turned the thing off. He probably wanted advice on what to serve with the oysters, still intent on sharing his good fortune with her. Ordinarily they shared everything, good and bad, but not today. She just needed today to mourn the loss of him in her own way.

-oOo-

Sakura worked as a saleslady in Zara on 42nd and 5th Ave. Right across the street was the New York Public Library. There was a wide set of stairs leading up to the entrance to the library. On the even wider landing, there were several small tables and chairs where people sat to eat, drink or read something. These people weren't even necessarily interested in the library, it was just a very pleasant place to sit smack dab in the middle of Manhattan.

It was at one of these little tables that she'd met Ino one day last month. She'd been on her lunch break. Ino had strode out of the library, apparently on her own lunch break and walked past Sakura's table. She'd given Sakura a glance that had raked her from crown to heels without breaking her stride, and moved on. A few minutes later she came back carrying a bag from a hot dog vendor, that no doubt contained several hot dogs. She had a strawberry kiwi Snapple in her other hand. Sakura had watched the way Ino jogged up the wide steps two at a time and smiled.

Ino had seen the smile and stopped. Sakura broadened her smile and Ino had come to her table. "You mind?" Ino had said. Her voice had struck Sakura with its deep huskiness.

"Nope," Sakura had grinned.

They'd struck up a conversation as Ino did indeed pull one loaded hot dog after another out of her moist paper bag. Sakura had counted a total of ten, with all the trimmings. They smelled wonderful, but Sakura didn't eat meat.

The conversation had really consisted of Sakura talking while Ino listened and ate. Ino wasn't a big talker, but some information did pass her lips. Sakura learned that Ino was a security guard in the library.

Being around Ino was thrilling. She was so different from the people Sakura usually associated with. Sakura strongly suspected Ino was gay. The woman never talked about men or looked at them.

If Ino was indeed gay, and Sakura concluded shortly after the first meeting that she was, then she was undoubtedly one of a dying breed. Ino was an archetypal bull dyke if ever Sakura had seen one.

There was her physique, to begin with. Ino had to be six feet tall. Her body was muscular, patently so. There was no limb on Ino that didn't abound with muscle. She wasn't like those female bodybuilders, but she was definitely stouter than the majority of women a few men. Her breasts were almost non-existent, flattened by the underlying muscles of her chest as they were. Her neck was thicker than any woman's who wasn't obese, and her feet sat comfortably in size twelve women's work boots. Her face was square, with a strong chin and jaw. Her hands were broad. Ino had never discussed her origins with Sakura, but the latter had always surmised that Ino must be one of those corn-fed Iowa people you heard about. Muscles were one thing, but Ino had the large-boned, healthy look of someone raised on a farm.

Ino's only concession to her sex was her hair. It was a long, ridiculously thick mass of blonde that she kept in a tight, low bun while on the job. Sakura only knew of its length because it had come undone one day. Beyond that, Ino had rich black lashes that surrounded eyes of a pure turquoise.

Her personality wasn't as bold as her body. It was a quiet, watchful, curiously intense personality. Reserved. Confidence baked off her in waves. Sakura thought of Ino as a rock. Something strong, yet utterly unmovable when it came to most things. Unflappable, that was the word. She got around with an economy of movement, and spoke in her low voice and that was Ino.

After that first day, Sakura took care to eat her lunch on the library terrace several times a week, hoping to strike up a friendship. She'd told Ino that she worked right across the street, but Ino had never come looking in Zara for her. Ino never expressed an interest in her that was anything other than platonic. Sometimes Sakura caught Ino staring at her, but whenever she held the gaze, Ino would just blink quietly. She never said suggestive things to Sakura or asked her out, so surely friendship would be okay? She liked being around Ino's quiet presence. It was strangely exciting.

* * *

Sakura exited Grand Central Station and began walking down 42nd to the library. She knew Ino worked on Saturdays. Her strides were quick and purposeful, like most New Yorkers, and it was only a couple of blocks. She got there in good time.

She had no intentions of turning to Ino in her time of grief and leading the woman on. Sakura was neither that heartless, nor that stupid. But just now, it would feel good to be with someone who wasn't gossipy and who wouldn't require all the gory details of her failed passion for Naruto.

Sakura actually walked past the library in order to get a smoothie from the nearby Jamba Juice. She went back to the library with this pricy sustenance in hand, and sat directly in front of the library entrance, at a deserted table. Her phone was off and she wore no watch, but she found out from a businessman behind her that it was only just after eleven. Ino didn't do lunch until around one. Sakura eyed her large smoothie, wondering if she could nurse it for two hours. Then she tilted her head back and regarded the blinding sky. She couldn't sit out in this sun for two whole hours, no way. She hadn't even put on any sunscreen.

"I thought you didn't work Saturdays."

The low voice was instantly recognizable. Sakura snapped her head back down and found Ino standing at her table, in the process of lighting a cigarette. She squinted one eye against the smoke now, as she looked calmly down at Sakura.

Sakura smiled brightly, already feeling some of the ache in her chest dissipate. "I don't. I came to see you. Are you having lunch early?"

Ino took her time answering, another trait of hers. She studied Sakura's face a moment as she shook out her match. She drew deeply on her Marlboro, held it in, flicked the ash aside, then blew a tight stream of smoke over Sakura's head. "Cigarette break," she said finally. She sat opposite Sakura, moving with her strange grace. "What's wrong?"

Sakura had been in the process of taking a sip of her smoothie. She swallowed now, dabbing at her lips. "I'm sorry?"

Ino waved at Sakura idly with the hand holding her smoke. "Something's wrong, I can see it. You're not as lively as usual." Ino's eyes were direct, rarely blinking.

Sakura tried to keep her smile up and succeeded. Mostly. Her chin wobbled a tiny bit, and she felt tears prickle her eyes but she blinked them back furiously and rallied herself. She detested pity. "I'm fine, really."

Ino said nothing more, just watched her. She had both elbows on the table, one hand down, the other holding her cigarette to her face as she continued to smoke. She did not fidget.

Sakura did. That stare was a bit much to withstand when you didn't have conversation to distract you from it. She tried to think of something to say. "So… how've you been?"

"Fine."

"When do you get off?"

"Same time as always."

"Oh… well… I guess you have plans later?"

"I do."

Sakura wilted.

"But," Ino said, crushing her cigarette beneath her heel, "I can be free." Her unwavering eyes said the rest. _If you want. I can be free if you want me to be free._

Sakura understood perfectly. She was a direct person, and not usually into the games people played. The simple truth was that she wanted Ino's company today.

"If you can get free, that's great. Would you maybe… I don't know. Like to do something later?"

Ino's forearms were stacked in front of her as she leaned forward on the table. "Something like what?"

"I don't know," Sakura smiled. That stare was starting to fluster her. "Dinner? A show? I don't know, Ino!"

Ino was quiet as Sakura calmed herself down. When she had, she checked her watch and stood up. "Meet me at this address around seven." She gave Sakura a card she withdrew from the wallet in her back pocket. "Just go inside and ask for me, I'll come right out. We can decide then what to do."

Sakura nodded mutely, holding the card with both hands. Ino hesitated, looking down at her for a moment, then turned and walked back into the library, her long stride making people move out of her way.

As suddenly as a summer shower, Sakura burst into tears. As unnerving as Ino could sometimes be with her stares, Sakura always felt nice and calm around her somehow. While she'd been sitting across from her just now, Sakura had felt better. Insulated from her bruised heart. She'd actually managed to forget all about Naruto for those few lovely minutes. Now that Ino was gone, it all came back and Sakura hated it. She hated feeling sad or hurt, since she was rarely either of those things.

-oOo-

Sakura wiped her cheeks and sucked in her tears, bringing herself under swift control. She gathered her smoothie, got up and went back to Grand Central Station. There, she caught her train and later another, and arrived at her apartment shortly after one. She stripped and walked nude to her bed, where she flopped face down.

Her answering machine was beeping, which meant someone had left her a message. She didn't have the energy to see who it was, and couldn't have cared less at any rate. She was entitled to a day to wallow. Besides, it was probably only Naruto, calling to ask her something about his plans tonight. She'd call him in a few days, maybe. The thought of him hurt, and she turned her face into her pillow. Suddenly, she jumped up and went for her purse. She retrieved the card Ino had given her and felt her impending tears subside.

Sakura had been shocked that Ino had been perceptive enough to tell that she was laboring under a cloud of grief. She wondered what they would do tonight. It didn't have to be anything elaborate. All she wanted was some company. Earlier, she'd been glad Ino wasn't a gossipy person, but just then she felt like pouring her heart out would be good. It would help her get over her disappointment quicker, she reasoned. Ino had already proven herself to be a good listener.

Sakura held the card to her face, reading the words, mouthing them. She would make sure she was standing outside that address at five minutes to seven and hope that she and Ino could spend a nice long time together.


	4. Ino

* * *

 

**Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

* * *

Ino circled her opponent, chewing on her mouth guard. Joey was one tough Italian, but he was through. He had nothing left and though he hid it well, Ino could tell. She could always tell.

Joey came at her, feinting with his right then following up with a left hook that had everything he had left behind it. Ino had fought south paws on many occasions; she jabbed him on the chin, twisting so his blow glanced off her shoulder. Joey went down.

The referee lifted her fist, declaring her the winner. A smattering of applause greeted this pronouncement. The other patrons of the gym had stopped what they were doing to watch what was going on in the boxing ring.

"Nara!"

She turned at hearing her name. Lance, the beefy guard who ran security at the door, was waving to her from across the large room. When he saw that he had her attention he tipped his finger downward without lowering his hand, pointing to a petite woman by his side. "This chic says she's here for you," Lance called.

"It's all right, let her in," Ino said after she'd taken out her mouth guard. She ducked between the ropes and jumped down to the floor. "I told her to come."

Lance nodded, giving the woman beside him an approving once over. His eyes lingered on her ass. Ino jogged up, taking her head gear off so that she could give Lance a pointed look. He saw it and left, chuckling to himself. Ino turned to her visitor, noting the round-eyed, open-mouthed shock all over her face.

Sakura was staring at Ino, at the gym, at the many men practicing boxing moves on speed bags, punching bags or with each other. "Ino, you're a _boxer?_ "

"Sometimes. Nights, mostly."

Sakura, who'd been looking at the boxing gloves still on Ino's hands, looked up at her face now in confusion. She bent to the purse hanging at her side and dug through it until she brought out the card. "Really? Fascinating. I thought from this card that maybe you moonlighted here as a security guard, too."

"No." Ino glanced over her shoulder at hearing a low whistle behind her. A bunch of the guys were eyeing Sakura as if she were fresh meat… which she was. Her pretty, sweet-smelling softness was never seen in the gym. There were several lustful gazes stuck on Sakura, and Ino didn't like it. She turned back to Sakura now. "I'm going to hit the showers. I'll meet you out front in ten minutes."

Sakura nodded, smiled at Ino, and turned to walk away. When she was gone, Ino turned back to the gym at large, where silence now reigned.

Ino had never been one to broadcast her orientation. One, it was pretty obvious. Two, she didn't give a fuck what anyone thought. She didn't hesitate before speaking to the room now. She simply lowered her chin the way she did before a fight. It was an unconscious move, as was the way she balanced herself. The men around the gym, all boxers of one level or another, recognized the stance.

"She's off limits," Ino said in her throaty voice. "Anyone wants to think otherwise, I'm still prepped and warmed up." She held up her gloves to show what she meant. "Tell me now, because if anyone so much as looks at her after this I'll put them down hard."

No one spoke. No one wanted to. Ino was the only woman allowed in the gym because, frankly, she was one mean bitch in the ring. She made an excellent sparring partner. Besides, they all liked her. She was solid. They were more interested in the type of person who'd caught Ino's eye. She was cold to just about every living soul on the planet except her room mate. The little pink woman must be something special. They kept their silence.

Ino swiped under her nose with one glove, turned on her heel and loped to the showers.

-oOo-

There was a small annex to the showers that had a private stall. Ino showered here whenever she used the gym. She tugged at the laces to her gloves with her teeth until she could get them off, stripped, and stepped into the scalding spray.

She couldn't believe Sakura had really come. Today, when she'd seen her sitting in her customary spot on the library terrace, staring up at the sky, she'd felt her stomach knot up. That always happened when she saw Sakura. Then to see how sad she was… it was like seeing a bird fly backward. Unnatural. Sakura was the happiest person in the world, always smiling, laughing, moving. Alive. Vitally alive, and indomitably perky.

But there she'd sat, fighting back tears. And for a wonder, she'd come to the library on her day off seeking _Ino_ out. Ino didn't think Sakura was aware of the feelings she harbored for her. Ino herself didn't like to look at them too closely, disliking the lack of control she had over them. She wondered what Sakura would do if she could take a peek in Ino's heart.

Sakura had failed to pick up on the comment or two Ino had dropped, hinting at her feelings. She also mentioned some guy named Naruto from time to time, whom Sakura said was a friend, but who Ino suspected might be something more to her pink-haired nymph.

Clean, Ino killed the water and toweled off roughly. She had a change of clothes in her locker that would do for tonight. She wished she knew what Sakura wanted and why. She always felt so unbalanced around her. They talked when they shared lunch, but that was mostly Sakura. Ino could sit and listen to her for hours, hiding her nervousness and the way Sakura's quick gestures and animated eyes made her heart pound. After, when she came to the gym, she'd work off her towering sexual frustration in the ring, beating some poor sap to a pulp until she won.

Ino was endlessly curious about Sakura. If she hadn't seen the woman glance at as many women as she did men, she would have pegged her as completely straight. But she did look at women and there were times, usually during a lapse in conversation, when she would meet Ino's gaze with her wide eyes. These looks always made Ino tense. She was torn between hoping Sakura would say something that would let Ino move forward, and hoping she never discovered Ino's feelings. Sakura was too good for the likes of Nara Ino. If only she didn't burn for Sakura.

Ino inspected her reflection. Black cargo pants, gray wife-beater. Damp hair in a loose ponytail low down by her nape. And her trusted Harley-Davidsons on her feet. More than she could ever love any person (with the possible exception of Sakura) she loved her Harley-Davidson riding boots. Satisfied, she grabbed her helmet, her keys, and her wallet from her locker and strode from the locker room, lifting an arm in farewell to the gym occupants. She stiff-armed the door that let out to the street.

* * *

Sakura was in the process of telling some wino, kindly, that she didn't have anything for him. The filthy man edged closer to her, his eyes darting to her purse. "Please, man, all I need is a smoke. A Christing smoke, aintchoo got no charity in ya?" the man pleaded. He licked his cracked lips, edging closer to Sakura still. Sakura clutched her purse in growing unease.

Ino walked up and shoved the man hard with one hand, steering Sakura away in the same motion. The man staggered backward, stumbled, and went down on his ass, cursing Ino out as only a New Yorker could. By her side, Sakura bit her lip at some of the language, but she turned her face up to regard Ino. "Thank you."

Ino nodded mutely, trying to control the urge to turn back and bloody the man properly. Violence roiled in her, always close to the surface, but Sakura was with her and she didn't want her to know how dysfunctional she really was. She led her around the corner to where she had her bike parked in the alley behind the gym.

Sakura again stared in surprise. "You have a motorcycle!"

Ino smiled slightly. "Yes." She got the extra helmet and handed it to Sakura.

"Oh," Sakura said uncertainly, handling the helmet awkwardly. "But… what about my dress?"

Ino eyed the summer dress. It was the same one Sakura had been wearing earlier. The same delicate sandals sat on her dainty little feet. She shrugged, not knowing what to tell her.

Sakura solved the problem by hiking the thing up to her thighs. She put the helmet on and buckled it. It looked ridiculous on her, black where the rest of her was pink and white, but she didn't seem to mind. Ino swung her leg over her bike, and felt Sakura settle on behind her. There was a moment, when Sakura pressed herself tightly to Ino's back, her slim legs along Ino's thighs and her arms around her waist, that Ino thought she'd choke on the rush of desire that rose up in her. She clenched her jaw tightly, breathing evenly through her nose until she had herself under control. She couldn't stop the mild tremor that ran through her, though. "Where to?" she asked when she could speak.

"Oh, anywhere, Ino!"

Ino smiled beneath her helmet. Sakura always gave herself so fully to life. She could fall into a ditch and consider it an adventure. "You hungry?"

"Yes!"

"Hang on." Ino gunned the engine, kicked the bike stand back and roared off.

Sakura squealed and tightened her body against Ino's back. Her arms squeezed around Ino's solid waist and her pointed chin dug into the muscles of Ino's shoulder. Ino wove in and out of cars, hitting the turnpike and opening the throttle so that she was doing 95/mph. Illegal, but she went faster still, seemingly unconcerned with police or speed limits. Sakura damn near cut her in two with the strength of her grip, but neither of them complained.

-oOo-

Ino had time to think as she drove from Brooklyn, through tolls into New Jersey, on her way to Mont Clair. Sakura knew less about her than she thought. If she didn't know about the bike and the boxing, two very important parts of Ino, then what did she know? Ino wasn't much of a talker, but had she really kept so quiet with Sakura?

Well, she hated speaking about her past. With anyone. There wasn't much of note in her present besides her three B's: boots, bike and boxing. And she was supremely indifferent about the future. As long as she opened her eyes each morning and was able to take a deep breath she expected nothing more from life.

Ino was an angry, violent, highly emotional person. She felt things intensely… she just never displayed those emotions. The only feeling she ever exhibited was her deep rage, and that usually only in the ring. She literally hated just about everyone she came into contact with. Those she didn't hate were the ones she didn't care about one way or the other.

There was one, though, who mattered. Her room mate. She'd grown up with him, had moved to New York with him. They'd suffered together. Their bond was unbreakable. He was as much a part of her as her skin. He was beyond even her three B's.

Sakura was a new element. In every way, she was as different from Ino as it was possible to be. She was like a butterfly with her petite 5'3 body and her carefree outlook on life. Ino didn't think the woman had ever been wronged, or hurt, or abused, or angry, or sad. Nothing but sunshine and rainbows, puppies and moonbeams for Sakura. It would have been cause for Ino to administer violence if it didn't intrigue her so much. And if Sakura wasn't pretty enough to kill for. Sakura was the type to wear glittery lip gloss and flirty little dresses. The ultimate femme.

By contrast, Ino wore t-shirts, cargo or work pants, and her trusty boots day in and day out. She was 6'2 in bare feet, broad of shoulder, strong of limb. She smoked, she drank, she cursed and brooded. By her own admission, she was not a nice person. And she liked it like that. She liked being self-sufficient and mean to people when they dared intrude on her bubble of solitude with their nosiness. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to crush their delicate feelings whenever they approached her for friendship.

But that was only if someone spoke to her. Otherwise, Ino kept to herself and minded her own business. She projected such a frosty air of 'leave-me-the-fuck-alone' that no one outside her job or the gym cared to approach her.

Sakura seemed to see none of that. Ino had initiated contact that time outside the library, true, but Sakura never said anything about her long silences, her stares, or any of the other things people blew up about when around Ino. That she'd sought Ino out during whatever disaster she was going through (and seriously, if Sakura had been near tears, it had to be something equal to the end of the world) must mean she felt okay around Ino. Ino didn't know if she'd be any help, socially stunted as she was, but so far Sakura hadn't asked her to do anything but take her to wherever. She could do that.

-oOo-

They pulled up forty-five minutes later to a charming little Lebanese restaurant in Mont Clair. Ino parked around back and held out her hand to assist Sakura off.

Sakura's legs looked dewy and invitingly touchable. Ino was sorry to see the dress drop down over them. Remembering how those same legs had held her so tightly, she was forced to repress a heated shudder of longing. Sakura handed Ino her helmet.

Inside, they found a spot near a window, smoking section, and waited until their server had handed them menus. Ino noticed Sakura almost vibrating in her chair, clearly in a state of high excitement. She stared at Ino with shining eyes. Ino merely stared back, wondering what she was so happy about this time. She found out soon enough.

"Oh god, Ino, that ride! I'd never been on a motorcycle before tonight. Did you see how I nearly fell off a few times?"

"You did all right," Ino said. Then, because Sakura seemed to be waiting for more, "You liked it?"

"Yes!"

Sakura always spoke in exclamatory tones, Ino reflected. She nodded for her benefit. "Good."

"And this place! Do you eat Arabic food often? The staff here seems to recognize you… do you come here a lot?"

"Enough times." Ino got a pack of cigs from a pants pocket and tapped one out. She dug a lighter from an opposite pocket and lit it.

"Isn't it far coming to Jersey just to eat?"

Ino blew out smoke. "I live up the road."

"I thought you lived in New York?"

"Used to."

"What happened?"

"Moved," Ino said. Her face and voice indicated that this should be evident to even the dullest person.

Undeterred, Sakura moved on to another topic. "Aren't you worried the cops will stop you when you speed like that?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Cops can't chase you beyond a certain speed limit themselves. Any biker who's caught obviously wasn't going fast enough."

"But that's so dangerous! And illegal!"

"So?"

"So… don't you want to be safe?" Sakura asked with real concern.

"I am safe."

Sakura was silent for a time as she became absorbed in her menu. Ino used the time to study her. Sakura appeared to have calmed down somewhat from the ride. Ino, too, felt that her nerves were back in order from the riled up state Sakura's proximity had left them in. She stretched her legs out under the table, leaned back on her side of the booth and absently tapped her ashes in the glass ash tray on their table. Sakura's pink highlights caught the mellow glow of the lamp hanging over their table. Feathery locks of hair fell over her face, framing it. Her lashes moved as she perused the menu and her normally light eyes appeared darker, full of mystery. Her lips moved as she quietly tried pronouncing some of the phonetically spelled names for dishes.

_So pure_ , Ino thought. _Like an angel. And I'm the devil._

Sakura slowly put her menu down. "I'm going to have the _baba ghanouj_."

Ino gave a single nod, still watching her. Sakura looked serious, as if she wanted to say something else. Sure enough…

"Ino, I have to tell you something." When Ino merely kept that turquoise gaze on her face, she continued. "About why I wanted to hang out with you tonight."

Sakura waited to see if Ino would say anything encouraging. Ino only dragged on her cigarette, watching Sakura as she exhaled through her nose. Sakura saw that this was the only encouragement she would be getting and resumed speaking.

"I guess I've mentioned Naruto?" Ino nodded. "Yes, well… he's definitely not going to see me as anything more than a friend. He's found the love of his life and is wildly happy about it. It hurts me, a lot actually, but I want what's best for him. And if this is what makes him happy, I can't keep hanging on to him." Sakura shrugged, looking down at her hands. "He'll always be my best friend. Maybe it's better we didn't complicate our friendship with other things. I mean… the way I feel for him is nothing compared to what he feels for that other person. Maybe I wasn't really in love with him. I don't know. But being around you makes me feel good and I felt like I needed a distraction tonight."

Sakura's eyes were glassy again, Ino saw. The fact that Sakura felt good around her gave her a mild buzz. So Naruto was no longer in the picture? That was nice news, nice news indeed, though it bugged her to see how it fucked with Sakura's feelings. She wondered if she was supposed to pat her hand or something. She wouldn't mind… Maybe she would. She reached her hand casually across the table, but Sakura chose that time to put her hands in her lap. Ino left her hand where it was, near the ash tray.

"Anyways," Sakura said after several moments. "I hope you don't mind. I didn't feel like being alone. It's okay, right?" Sakura looked at Ino worriedly.

"What is?"

"Us hanging out? We never have before. I don't know what time you go to bed."

"Usually don't go to bed."

"How's that work?" Sakura tipped her head curiously, making Ino long to kiss the small frown between her eyes.

Ino shrugged a shoulder, flicking ash in her tray. "Don't need much sleep. Get by on an hour or two a day."

"What! And you're not tired?"

"Not really."

"Do you drink a lot of coffee then?"

"No."

"How do you do it?"

"Just do."

"Oh… so is it okay, then? Hanging out?"

"If it wasn't, I wouldn't have agreed to meet you."

Their server came and took their orders. Ino decided on lamb chops. Sakura was smiled at and fawned over by the good-looking server until he saw Ino's glare. Ino decided then and there not to tip the guy. She could see in his eyes that he was late in picking up on the significance of Ino showing up with someone after all the times she'd patronized their establishment alone or with her room mate. Once he did, the server murmured an apology and went off to place their order. _Maybe a small tip,_ Ino conceded grudgingly.

* * *

Sakura babbled on happily about this and that. Ino smoked and listened. She nodded when asked a direct question, or shook her head. Sakura required nothing else from her in the way of conversation, a fact that elevated the pink-haired woman to something more than mere mortals, in Ino's opinion. Everyone always wanted Ino to discuss what she thought, or share her ideas or some other fuckery, but not Sakura.

"I'm so happy you agreed to come out with me tonight," Sakura gushed later over her food. "I feel so much calmer when you're around."

That statement made Ino pause mid-chew to glance at Sakura. "I didn't do anything."

"No, I know you didn't, but I always feel good around you. Usually I'd go to Naruto if I was feeling blue, but I couldn't do that this time, obviously. You're quiet and everything, but that's okay, you know? You're such a good listener and apparently I don't get on your nerves like I do most people." Sakura leaned forward and cupped a hand to her mouth, as if she were about to impart a secret. She beckoned for Ino to lean forward as well, which she did. "A lot of people think I'm on some kind of anti-depressant because I'm always so happy. They think I'm mentally unstable, can you believe it?" Sakura giggled as she sat back.

Well, the chic _was_ unnaturally happy, Ino thought. But mentally unstable? Those people must not know the meaning of the word. Ten minutes with Ino and they'd know what mentally unstable was. And while she was thinking of it…

"People say I'm mentally unstable, too," Ino said quietly. She took a sip of her beer.

"Oh, but you're not!" Sakura exclaimed loyally.

Ino snorted. "You don't know me. I am fucked up, but I keep it to myself. I hate when people try to shrink me or 'help' me. I feel like if I'm not sharing it, people shouldn't go digging for it."

"But you share with your friends, right?"

"What friends?"

"Don't you have friends?"

"No. And I don't want any."

"Well… I'm a friend, right?"

Ino gazed unblinkingly at Sakura for so long that the latter was forced to drop her eyes behind a blush. "Yes," Ino said at length. "My only one."

Sakura looked up again, smiling dazzlingly. "Thank you. I consider you a friend, too. We should exchange emails and phone numbers so I don't have to go down to the library whenever I want to ask you out."

Ino went very still. It seemed like her very heart stopped beating. "Ask me out?"

"I mean ask you to hang out," Sakura said awkwardly.

A few things clicked into place for Ino just then. The first was that Sakura was aware of Ino's sexuality. That was news. The second was that Sakura was more than comfortable in her presence. Maybe there was a mild attraction.

"I don't do email or have a phone," she said carefully, watching Sakura more closely.

"How do people contact you?"

"On my room mate's email or the house line, if I'm home."

Sakura was blushing again, thanks to Ino's stare. "Well, how can I contact you?"

"What would you contact me for? I work right across the street from your job. Anything you want to say to me can be said during the week." Ino was relentless with her stare, refusing to look away or blink.

Sakura fidgeted. "I know, but… well what if I wanted to call you in the middle of the night?"

"For what?"

"To talk. I don't know."

"Don't you sleep?"

"Yes, but…"

"But?"

Sakura dropped her eyes, staring at her plate of half-eaten food. She deflated where she sat. Ino was spellbound. Who would have thought that a person could be sexy while being droopy? She asked in wonder, "You _want_ to hang out? For no reason? When you're not upset?" The possibility of an attraction seemed more and more likely. Ino's heart sped up.

Sakura only nodded, listlessly picking up her fork and scraping at an olive.

"Why?"

"I like hanging out with you. I like you."

Something about the way she said it had Ino sitting up straighter, eyes sharpening until they were like ice. "Define like."

"How? Like is like. I really like you."

Ino shoved her plate aside to lean her elbows on the table. Her chin was lowered, as were her brows. She managed to be menacing even while sitting, though she didn't know it. Sakura certainly noticed and shrank back against her seat, holding her butter knife in a quasi-defensive position.

"Don't play with me, Sakura," Ino said severely. "Don't play games with me just because I'm gay. Don't say things just because your childhood sweetheart found someone else." She wanted to be sure. It suddenly struck Ino that Sakura might be on the rebound and she just had to be sure.

"I'm not," Sakura cried. "I swear I'm not. The last thing I want to do is lead you on, but I _do_ like you, Ino!" She sat miserably, almost quailing at Ino's fierce frown.

Ino turned back to her food and finished it with a few vicious bites. _Dangerous,_ she thought angrily. Sakura liked her, felt good around her, asked her out and wanted to continue asking her out, but she saw Ino as a friend. _And all I want to do is suck her till she comes. Dangerous._

Ino had never had a relationship. Sex for her was picking up some bitch for a night, that was it. She did not date or do the relationship scene, ever. This whole thing with Sakura had the potential to skate out into relationship territory, and Ino didn't think she could deal. It was one thing to pine for Sakura within the darkened confines of her black soul, quite another to oppress Sakura with her feelings. She didn't think either of them would be able to handle the strength of Ino's feelings. Jesus, no. Just no. And treating Sakura as she treated other women was out of the question. Sakura would expect a relationship and Ino knew her feelings would have her trying to give Sakura whatever she wanted.

Done, Ino signaled for the check. Sakura good-naturedly reached for her purse, but Ino said tersely, "I got this." She paid and got up, heading for the door. She didn't look behind her to see if Sakura was following or hold the door in case she was. She moved with her trademark ground-eating strides, got to her bike, and only then heard the light patter of Sakura running behind her in her sandals. She reached the bike in a flurry of pink dress and flying pink hair.

"I left a tip," Sakura said breathlessly. She was struggling with her helmet.

Ino let her struggle, absolutely refusing to dictate where the evening went from here. She would let Sakura lead. She wanted to see just what it was the woman had in mind for the evening.

Sakura got her helmet on and lifted her dress until it was around her hips. She steadied herself with a hand on Ino's shoulder as she clumsily swung one leg over the bike. She took a few minutes to settle herself on the thing, wiggling against Ino's ass until Ino had to grit her teeth and close her eyes for patience. Sakura finished by holding Ino around the waist.

Ino sat there in baffled disbelief. Sakura hadn't said anything, not about where she wanted to go or if Ino had plans to go somewhere, nothing. Nor did she seem concerned with Ino's obvious anger. Ino's unexpected rages were common both to herself and the few people she associated with, but Sakura should have ended the evening at the very least from this display. She didn't. She just sat behind Ino as if she were on a bus, waiting to be taken to 'wherever' again.

_Fine, if that's how you want it,_ Ino thought. She pulled sharply away from the curb. Sakura held on.

-oOo-

Ino drove around a bit, waiting to see if Sakura would say anything, but silence reigned from the back seat. There was no place Ino cared to be, other than at the gym, so she went home. She pulled up to an old three-story house and parked in the driveway. Sakura got off without being told and handed her helmet to Ino. Now she spoke.

"Whose house is this?"

Ino was closing the gate to the driveway. "Mine."

"I didn't know security guards made so much."

"They don't." She offered no further explanation, but took the stone stairs leading to the first floor three at a time. Sakura came behind her.

Inside, Ino dropped her keys and wallet on a small table beside the door. She stalked through the downstairs rooms, leaving Sakura on her own.

* * *

She needed a minute, just a few minutes, to get her bearings. She didn't know what Sakura was doing and didn't care. She took the stairs, saw that her room mate's door was open (which meant he wasn't home) and continued on to her room. She slammed the door as hard as she could and threw herself onto her bed.

Sakura was here, actually in her house. She knew of Ino's preferences and still 'liked' her enough to want to hang out. She sat up half way to move her ponytail from under her back and settled back down, staring at the ceiling. _I can't get involved with her. I'll only break her._

She tortured herself anyway with a little fantasy about Sakura. Then her mind drifted.

-oOo-

_She didn't know who her parents were. Her earliest memories were of Kabuto. He was the one who'd raised her until she was twelve._

_Except he hadn't raised her. She'd been his property, something he'd used to make money. Kabuto had a nice business going, selling Ino to men who preferred them young and tight. They would visit the trailer she and Kabuto lived in at all hours of the day and night, paying Kabuto cash, while their eyes roamed hungrily over where Ino sat crouched and filthy in her chains._

_She couldn't remember the first time it had happened to her, or a time when it wasn't happening, but she remembered being seven years old when Kabuto had walked in with a frightened, wailing boy about her own age. Kabuto had said it was time to branch out and make twice as much money. The boy would see to that by catering to clientele that preferred underage ass._

_Kabuto never left them alone, not after acquiring the boy. He had food delivered to the trailer instead of going out for it. Though Ino and the boy were chained day and night, he kept his eye on them._

_But he slept. And when he did, Ino and the boy would hold whispered conversations._

_The boy had been kidnapped, Ino learned. By someone paid by Kabuto to do so. He'd been out with his parents at an amusement park when it happened. Nightly, the boy cried wrenchingly for the mother and father he knew were sick with worry. He cried because he knew he'd never see them again. Ino tried to comfort him as best she could. She realized that she herself must have been kidnapped. It must have happened before she could remember her parents._

_The johns seemed to like the boy more than Ino. He was more sensitive, cried more easily. And Ino was taller, stronger, and more defiant. She stared with mute rage every time she was forced to endure the painful sex that damaged her physically and emotionally. The men didn't like it. They wanted someone meek. At twelve, one john said to Kabuto as he zipped himself up, "That girl's getting mighty tall, Kabuto. Find me another one that's smaller and I'll keep coming back. Otherwise…"_

_Kabuto had gotten the hint, but did not get another girl. Instead, he'd started advertising Ino to men who liked women, but liked them young. These were worse than the pedophiles, because they often had kinks and fetishes that made them treat Ino with a brutality the pedophiles lacked. The men who liked children generally fucked them with a care to their ages. They got off on the tender years of their prey, not causing pain._

_The boy was smallish for his age, so didn't suffer as much. The child-lovers still liked him. But when he too began getting tall, Kabuto decided to hold a party. A kind of farewell party for all the patrons he'd had over the years, a last fuck of the children they'd abused, a massive orgy._

_Ino and the boy were both twelve._

_It was a night she couldn't remember, because she'd actively repressed it. She only remembered that at some point she'd lost consciousness. She'd woken up to find herself covered in blood and the boy standing over her with a broken beer bottle that was also covered in blood._

_Kabuto lay dead a few feet away._

_Their chains hindered them for long hours, but they finally managed to pick the locks and get them off. They'd sat unfettered for a time, looking at Kabuto's cooling body. Finally, the boy had said, "He was going to kill you."_

_And Ino had said, "You're my brother." Meaning no matter what happened next, they would be together, there for each other._

_They'd left. Living in rural Alabama had its advantages. The boy had taken Kabuto's shotgun and ammunition and hunted for them. They'd camped by a stream in the woods for several months, avoiding hunters and hikers. During the winter, they'd slept huddled together for warmth, sleeping in a hole they'd dug in the ground. They knew to go to the authorities would mean being separated. They opted to stay together, fending for themselves. Besides, there was no trust for adults in either of them._

_The boy was smart. They would travel around every season, never staying more than a few months in one place. He stole books for them, taught Ino how to read, made sure they had clothes. Later, he'd managed to steal a laptop. He had books on computers that he pored over by fire light every night. They hauled these books and the laptop around in huge camping backpacks they'd stolen from a couple of sleeping hikers one night. They would wash in whatever water they could find once a week, put on their town clothes, and use the internet at a hotspot, telling people that they were waiting for their parents._

_Years passed._

_The boy, now a hard, deceptively mild-looking young man, said they'd need jobs. They needed money. At that moment, Ino remembered something she'd seen in her childhood, but had forgotten about._

_Kabuto had once dug a hole behind the trailer and buried a garbage bag full of money in it. When she mentioned it, the boy's eyes grew round. They went back to the trailer, taking a week to reach there._

_The money was there. Hundreds of thousands of dollars._

_Being back at the trailer affected them both. They left quickly, only breathing properly when they were in the next town over. The boy sat down on a set of rusty train tracks and thought hard._

_It was decided that he would forge lives for them. School records, doctor's visits, diplomas, the whole works. Since Ino had no last name he gave her his. He could do it on the computer, he said. They would take the money, move to the city, and buy a house. They would stop running._

_They were eighteen._

_Life in the city was hell. It was crowded, noisy, and too overwhelming after years of just having each other. Learning to live by society's rules took time, but they did learn, to an extent. They worked at blending in as much as possible at first, losing their southern drawls, trying to make friends before it became obvious that they would never fit in completely._

_They stayed in an apartment in New York until they bought the house in Jersey. They still had some money left from Kabuto's stash, but they left this in the bank. The house was paid for. The only expenses they had were property tax, food, utilities, and gas. And they had each other. It was all either of them needed._

-oOo- _  
_

Ino opened her eyes. It had been seven years since they'd moved to the city. Her room mate, once a boy, tried to forget their past just as much as she did. She knew she would never be normal and was fine with it. She worked, boxed, and felt she needed nothing more.

Except Sakura.

She'd never needed anyone besides her room mate until Sakura. She'd never entertained the idea of a husband and kids, knowing she'd murder the first man who dared ask her out. None did. And she couldn't stand children and the way they reminded her of how weak and defenseless she'd once been. She dared not enter into a relationship with Sakura.

Ino wasn't particularly insightful, but she knew herself enough to know that if she ever loved anyone romantically, it would be a one-time deal. She didn't have it in her to love more than once, that much she knew. And because of this, the love would be cataclysmic, apocalyptic in its strength.

As it was for the woman she'd left downstairs. It was so strong that Ino couldn't derive any pleasure from it. As long as she didn't indulge it, she'd be fine. She could exert some small measure of control if she left Sakura alone, didn't pursue her, but tonight the bitch was so damn inviting... Sakura's sadness and vulnerability made Ino salivate. Her confession of liking Ino and wanting to contact her was a goad to her weakening control. Again, she thought how dangerous it was. Dangerous because she felt brittle with sexual need and Sakura was too tempting by far. Ripe for the plucking.

* * *

She heard movement downstairs. A crash. Sakura had broken something. Ino sighed and rolled to her feet, reaching her door in one stride and yanking it open.

Downstairs she found Sakura guiltily trying to sweep the shards of a broken glass into a dust pan. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I was trying to get a glass of water. I was nervous. This house is so dark and spooky-looking and you didn't come back down, so I thought-"

Ino took the broom, which caused Sakura to stop her babbling. She had the glass swept up in a moment and turned to find Sakura standing blithely, a small smile on her face. "What," Ino snapped.

"Nothing. I'm glad you came back down."

_Keep pushing me with those smiles and we'll see how glad you are then, damnit._ Ino slammed the dustpan back into the broom closet with the broom. Sakura seemed amused at Ino's display of temper. She kept that pleasant smile on her pleasant face, standing pleasantly as if in the presence of a pleasant person. Ino couldn't take it. Ordinarily she liked Sakura's peppy attitude, but just then it was unbearable. "I'm taking you home," she barked.

That wiped the smile from Sakura's face. "Oh, please don't. I don't want to have to think about Naruto and the fact that he's probably getting naked with Sasuke."

"How is that my problem?"

"Friends are there for each other in times of crisis, Ino. I'd do the same for you if you needed it."

Ino repressed a growl. "Give me your address."

Sakura sealed her lips. She regarded Ino with plaintive eyes.

Ino marched over to her and snatched her purse, breaking the strap in the process. Sakura made outraged noises about her privacy being violated, but Ino sifted through the junk in the thing until she located Sakura's ID. Bronx. She threw the purse back to Sakura. "Let's go." She headed for her door.

Sakura stood her ground, her eyes glittery with rare anger. "Don't bother. I can take a train."

"Trains stopped running to New York at twelve. It's quarter after now. Move on your own steam or I will carry you."

Sakura began walking. "I don't know why you're so angry at me, but I'm not going anywhere with you. I'll find my own way home."

Ino reached into the house and pulled Sakura the rest of the way out by her arm. She led her quickly to where her bike was parked, opened the driveway gate, and returned to straddle her ride. Sakura stood by it, arms folded. Ino threw the spare helmet at her.

Sakura relented when Ino gunned the engine. She wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around Ino's thick midsection, apparently trying to hurt her. Ino would have chuckled, but she was trying not to lose control. It was never good when she lost control. The last time she'd done so, she'd broken three ribs and both arms of her sparring partner in the ring. He'd made a comment about her aggression in the ring translating to aggression in bed or some shit like that.

Sakura was more relaxed on the bike than she had been her first time. She rested her head on Ino's back and Ino felt some of her anger leave her. She was taking Sakura's head off for no reason. Sakura had grown up with two loving parents, had gone to college, had friends… she couldn't help the way she was. Ino had no right to bitch at her just because she wanted her and felt undeserving of her.

-oOo-

Ino drove up through a densely wooded park. She slowed the bike to a crawl, riding the earthen pathways until she found what she was looking for. She rolled to a stop at a small bluff that overlooked Mont Clair. The view was mostly dark, but there were a few lights on, a few cars roaming around. Trees stood around them, crowding right up to the edge of the bluff. The spot was secluded. They were alone.

She felt Sakura looking around behind her, then getting off the bike. Sakura walked to the edge of the bluff and looked over, back at Ino, then over the bluff again. She edged away from the drop, taking off her helmet. Ino continued to sit, getting a cigarette and lighting it. She leaned on her handle bars a moment.

Sakura turned in a circle, taking in the trees and the star-studded sky. She seemed to have gotten over her brief anger. "You now what would make this moment memorable?" she said suddenly. She looked at Ino brightly, smiling widely. "Music." She took out her iPhone, switched it on, and accessed Pandora.

Ino watched, dragging on her cig deeply. The end of some song she didn't know was fading. She blew smoke to one side and took a breath. She hated apologies, but she found that she hated the idea of Sakura being mad at her even more. "I'm sorry. About before. At the house."

Sakura lit up. That was the only way Ino could describe it. The woman lit up from within at the apology, bouncing over to where Ino sat and resting both small hands on Ino's forearm. "I'm sorry, too! I shouldn't have been so snippy. We're good?"

Ino didn't answer, staring at Sakura's face. This close, she could see the eyebrows that had to be dyed pink, the same as her hair. They were fine little arches, currently raised in question. Sakura's hands were warm on her arm.

Sakura took the silence for assent. She actually gave Ino a small hug. Ino tolerated this only because she was too shocked and disturbed to do otherwise. And Sakura was in the process of lifting her dress to climb onto the bike again. In front of Ino. Ino watched this in dumb amazement, forced to scoot backward and give Sakura room. She'd been holding the bike up with her feet planted on the ground, but now she pushed the stand down with her heel, making the bike lean a bit. She leaned with it, bracing her weight on one foot on the leaning side, while she rested the other foot up on her bike. Sakura, however, wobbled alarmingly. Ino steadied her with a hand on her back until Sakura decided to turn sideways and sit facing the lean. She sighed contently when all this maneuvering was done.

The silence between them stretched on as another song played. Ino recognized Miley Cyrus' voice and grimaced, but Sakura belted right along with the teen about a party in the USA. She stopped singing to turn to Ino suddenly. "What kind of bike is this?"

"Ducati Streetfighter."

"Oh. I like the color." And she turned her head the other way again, looking at the city and singing with the song.

Ino glanced at her beloved bike. It was silver and black. Sakura continued to dance, moving her shoulders in time to the beat, as Ino's eyes traveled her body.

Sakura's skin looked as smooth as silk where it was exposed in the moonlight. Ivory shoulders, firm thighs, the shallow curve of her spine… Ino's eyes dropped to Sakura's feet. They couldn't be larger than a size five. Would Sakura like her toes sucked? Her eyes ran up the exposed calves, over the knees that were pressed together, stopping at the thin dress that was bunched in her lap. Ino narrowed her eyes against the smoke she blew out as she thought about shoving her tongue as far into Sakura as it would go.

Another song, one Ino actually liked this time. _Airplanes._ Sakura sang with the chorus. " _I could really use a wish right now, wish right now…"_

She turned to Ino and it seemed to the blonde woman that she'd been waiting all night to see the expression now on Sakura's face. Sakura looked wistful, as if she was slightly high. Her eyes were dark and mysterious again, and there was color on her cheeks. "I'm going to kiss you," Ino said softly.

A dream-like quality of surreal anticipation settled around them, making Ino feel as if she were sleepwalking. She couldn't look away from Sakura's face. She didn't know why she'd said that, but it was true. She was going to do it. She flicked the butt of her cigarette over the side of the bluff.

Sakura only nodded, as if she'd been waiting for this statement.

Ino held her gaze. Sakura twisted slowly, swinging her leg over the bike so that she was facing Ino. She rested her hands on the seat between them and leaned forward, an action that pushed her small breasts together and made them swell over the low neckline of her dress. Ino noticed this with a brief downward glance of her eyes, but she brought them quickly back to Sakura's face.

She couldn't fight anymore. She just couldn't. Maybe it had been pointless to try. She wanted Sakura more than she wanted her next breath. And if Sakura wanted her, too…

Ino never went down, a personal rule with her that stood her in good stead in the ring. She tried one last time to exert some measure of control over the inevitable. She checked Sakura's forward momentum by a hand on her midsection. She spoke in a voice low with need, raw with longing. "Sakura, I meant what I said before. Don't play with me. Don't start something you can't finish. This is your last chance to walk away. I won't hold back and I doubt you can take me."

Sakura answered in a whisper against Ino's lips. "Yes I can." Her body was trembling. Ino could detect this though her own body was stiff with resistance to Sakura's smell, to the welcoming femininity that excited her so fiercely. She resisted even though she knew she was going to kiss her.

"No, you can't. I'll love you so hard it would destroy us both. Stop me, Sakura."

Sakura hesitated, her lips nearly touching Ino's. She looked deeply into Ino's eyes as she answered. "I'm not toying with you, Ino. Sometime during tonight, I realized that I've wanted you for awhile. I guess it's why I came to you when I saw that Naruto didn't love me."

Ino heard no more, thought no more, as her head swooped downward to claim Sakura's mouth.

-oOo-

She twined her hand in a fistful of Sakura's dress near her stomach and dragged her forward so that Sakura was flush against her body. Sakura lifted her legs over Ino's thighs, sitting in her lap as Ino's hands ran up her back to hook over her shoulders.

The kiss. The last shred of Ino's resistance took a header out the window. Sakura's lips were juicy, her mouth sweet and soft. She sucked Sakura dry, desire constricting her chest at feeling Sakura tug on her ponytail. Sakura issued high moans that drove Ino wild; Sakura seemed to want her just as much. She certainly wasn't complaining.

Having what she'd dreamed about so often had Ino wrapping her arms around Sakura tightly. She was hot all over, indulging in feelings she always kept tightly wound. Ino let it all out now and another whimpering moan came from Sakura at the ferocity of Ino's mouth.

So soft. Ino would never have believed someone so thin could be so soft. Her hands dropped to Sakura's smooth bare thighs, massaging strongly. They encountered the thin line of Sakura's panties and tugged. The filmy garment was no match for Ino's urgency. It was there and gone, dropped on the ground by the bike. Sakura shifted, reaching for Ino's hand.

Ino sighed through the kiss as Sakura guided her hand to her core. She was soaked, dripping, sticky with her arousal. Ino laced her fingers with Sakura's and let her take the lead.

Sakura's breathing sped up as her hand increased its pace. Ino added pressure when Sakura mewled at her to do so, now straddling her bike as she stood to support Sakura's weight. Sakura threw her head back, biting her lip as Ino felt the first flutters of impending orgasm against her hand. Sakura came a moment later, a rush of moisture coating their joined hands as she shuddered in Ino's grasp. Sakura made breathless sounds, but managed not to scream. Ino held her until it was over, Sakura's pleasure slaking a tiny bit of her own lust.

Ino lowered her gently back to the bike. Sakura reclined against the handle bars and instrument panel, looking up at Ino with dewy eyes. Her feet were supported on Ino's legs, her knees spread. Sweat ran down the curve of one bare thigh in a rivulet that Ino thought was intensely erotic. It caught a stray beam of moonlight on its way to Sakura's moist folds. She bent and licked this drop up, as she watched cum leak from Sakura's hairless folds.

Sakura watched her, her breathing still uneven. "I want another one," she said.

Ino was already on her way to tasting her, Sakura's smell pulling her in, but Sakura's phone rang.

In reaching for it to turn it off, Sakura accidentally answered it. Ino could hear a male voice saying hello over and over in a panicked voice.

Sakura scowled and brought the phone to her ear. "Naruto, now really isn't-" Sakura's scowl deepened as the voice overrode her in sobbing tones.

Ino had been gazing where Sakura's clit lay swollen and exposed. She raised her eyes at hearing Naruto's name, and frowned when Sakura swung to a sitting position and began questioning Naruto sharply. She hung up a short time later.

"I have to go home," She told Ino while staring angrily at her phone. "He really needs me."

Ino didn't argue. She'd known it was too good to be true.

* * *

Sakura's neighborhood was lower middle class. Ino clocked the guys hanging around outside Sakura's building and halted her as she slid off the back of the bike. "Hang on, I'm walking you inside."

"I'll be fine," Sakura said stiffly. Whatever that phone call had been about it had really upset her. She turned to enter her building.

Ino'd be damned if she didn't see the woman safely through her door. She hurriedly killed the engine and hopped off her bike. She caught up to Sakura as she was entering the lobby. "It's going on two in the morning," she said tightly. "You want to get mugged?"

Sakura said nothing, pushing the elevator call button, and walking inside when the doors to the thing shuddered open. Ino followed. Sakura pushed the button for the tenth floor.

Ino wanted to say something about what had happened between them. She wanted to ask Sakura if she was going back to Naruto or what, but pride kept her silent. She was sick with hurt that the moment she'd given in to Sakura the woman seemed to change her mind. She occupied the time in the elevator by noting how gorgeous Sakura was when she was angry.

Once out of the elevator, Sakura turned to her to say something, but Ino's eyes were on the man with wild eyes who was in the process of making a leaping grab for Sakura. Ino shoved her out of the way and swung her leg in a roundhouse kick she knew would put down a man three times the size of the one in front of her.

Except the man ducked, twisted, and landed his heel dead center of Ino's face, breaking her nose. Ino went down, briefly, came back up leading with her right, and was put back down again immediately by an unseen blow to her head.

Her boxing training served her well now; used to head blows as she was, she didn't pass out. She turned on her stomach, willing her vision to clear. She watched in helpless dread as the man rushed to Sakura, seeming to forget Ino altogether. Sakura had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide and bulging. Ino tried to tell her to run and ended up choking on the blood trickling down her throat from her broken nose.

The man brought Sakura's attention to bear on him by throwing his arms around her in a hug. He rested his head on her shoulder, bending to do so. Sakura blinked at Ino from this awkward position, recovering her wits slowly. She was torn, Ino could see, between asking if Ino was all right and tending to the man who must be Naruto. Naruto's immediate presence won out.

"Honey?" Sakura crooned as she dragged her eyes from Ino and leaned back to cup his face. "Let me see."

Naruto pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Sakura. He then spun from Sakura to cover his eyes with a hand. Ino carefully got to her feet, using the wall to support herself when her head began spinning. Her movement seemed to draw Naruto's attention back to her now, though, and he turned to look at her with red-rimmed eyes, apparently uncaring of the fact that he'd nearly kicked Ino's head off not five minutes ago. He didn't even ask who she was.

Ino went to stand by Sakura as the smaller woman took a small sheaf of bills from the envelope. Sakura counted the bills quickly. Ino tallied it in her mind. A thousand dollars, all hundreds. Sakura held the first bill up to her face and Ino saw the word _Thanks_ scrawled in black ink.

Sakura needed several seconds to find her voice. Ino guessed this money and the word were relevant to Naruto's upset. "I'll kill him," Sakura said with quiet fury.

Naruto started to protest, but Sakura shushed him violently, her eyes flashing. She explained how no friend of hers would be treated like this, how she would shoot Sasuke with his own gun. Then she turned to Ino, who was spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"I want you to come with me, Ino. After we take you to a hospital."

Ino was nonplussed. "This isn't my business."

Sakura stormed to Ino –seriously, she moved now as if she were an army general- and grabbed her arm. She attempted to steer the much larger woman further down the hall, pushing futilely against Ino's immovable stance. Ino took pity on Sakura's lack of strength and went with her.

"Look," Sakura said when Naruto was out of ear shot. "I know you and I just started, but you're important to me. I mean," she went on when Ino merely stared. "I… want us to continue. He needs me right now, but that doesn't change what happened between us tonight. That said, I was hoping I could sort of count on you to help me. I can't take that guy alone. He's a cop."

Ino left off thinking how sexy Sakura looked when her eyes flashed and focused on what was being said. She recalled something from a few minutes ago, a name mentioned back at the house. "Wait, this person you want to take on is the love of Naruto's life that you told me about today? A guy? Naruto's-"

"Gay, yes," Sakura said impatiently. "Will you help me or not?"

Ino decided not to ask why Sakura had ever thought there'd be anything between her and her friend if he was gay. That was followed by the realization that she wasn't losing Sakura after all, and Ino felt all the pain in her head and nose leave her. She glanced at where Naruto was standing oblivious to their conversation. He looked a mess. "What do you want to do?"

Sakura's eyes hardened, giving Ino an exciting tingle. "Hurt him."

Ino managed a bloody smile. "We'll need my roommate then."


	5. Shikamaru

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

**Shikamaru:** ticking time bomb.

* * *

He liked movies. He went several times a week, springing for the goodies that invariably cost more than the price of his ticket. Monthly, he spent more money on movies than he did on clothes and transportation combined.

Buying DVD's or watching Netflix didn't cut it either. He had to be physically in a movie theater, in a seat, with goodies in his lap. It was cheaper to hit the CVS for munchies, but it just wasn't the same as having emptied your wallet on munchies inferior in quantity at the movies. Nor were the free movies shown after sunset down on 13th street or Bryant Park acceptable. It just wasn't the same as being in the enclosed, popcorn-scented atmosphere of a theater.

Right now he was sitting down to _The Expendables_ , which had opened yesterday. Saturday night as it was the place was packed. He had soft pretzels with cheese dip, a slice of pepperoni pizza, peanut M&M's, a Bueno bar, and one of those size large Cokes that came in a cup big enough to bathe a small child in. He would stay until the last showing of the movie, perhaps three or four viewings all told. He wasn't worried about being ushered out of his seat at the end of each showing. People tended to leave him alone.

Movies were an escape from life for him. The world of someone else's fantasy, even if the movie sucked ass, was vastly preferable to his own fucked up life. His room mate Ino had boxing as her escape. He had the movies. He sat back to enjoy the show.

* * *

By the time he left the theater it was after 2am. He walked the mile and a half to his house with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets.

There were a few people out at that time of the night. Mostly teens, drunk and laughing. There were less savory characters too. He actually saw drugs and money exchange hands in one darkened doorway, but by then he'd entered a seedier part of the neighborhood as a shortcut. He was noted by shifty, assessing eyes as he passed by the denizens of the night, but again he was left alone. He met a few stares, only to have the faces behind the stares duck down and let him pass unmolested.

Shikamaru was not someone who looked for trouble. He considered himself a peaceful person. He kept his emotions below the surface and did not bring them out for any reason. Ever. Ino could let loose her caustic anger at any time, and frequently did, but not him. It was too much to let loose. If ever he did, it would get away from him and he'd never reign it in again.

But it was there. He knew this was somehow visible in his perpetually stoic expression. His girlfriend had called him menacing. Ino called him a walking death sentence with the face of innocence. Whatever. All he saw in the mirror was someone of average build and height, nothing special.

The driveway was deserted. _Probably still at the gym,_ he thought. _Or on her way home._ He let himself into the house and went directly to his room.

-oOo-

His room was bare save for his bed and his computer desk. He went to his desk and accessed his laptop with his thumbprint and retinal scan.

The laptop was nothing anyone would find on the market. He'd built it himself, using parts he'd scavenged or bought through means that didn't bear too much scrutiny. It was black, 20-in screen, and heavier than most laptops today were.

And he was able to hack undetected into any government agency or institution on the planet.

He was sure his technology would earn him millions if he sold it to those same governments, but he already had access to all the money he could ever want. The entire world and its secrets lay at his fingertips. When he wasn't at the movies, he was at his computer.

He used to have a job working security at St. Vincent's Hospital, but that was before they shut down. He hadn't troubled himself to get another job. Employment had been something he'd done for Ino's benefit. She'd suggested they both work as security guards and he'd gotten them hired. She knew nothing of his more nefarious activities on the laptop or the fact that he would make sure she never lacked for anything, either financially or materially.

There was much Ino didn't know, Shikamaru thought as he sucked several bank accounts belonging to terrorist organizations dry. She didn't know that Kabuto had been raping the hell out of her when he'd opened his guts for him back when they'd been twelve. She didn't know that he'd escaped a few times while she'd been asleep, only to have Kabuto threaten to kill her if Shikamaru didn't stay.

And she didn't know how deeply Shikamaru loved her. She was his soul, his only anchor to humanity. Without her he would be nothing, dead and walking. She was his sunlight, his Ino was. His goddess.

It was a pure love, untainted by sexual contact or confessions. Shikamaru took care never to hint at his feelings by so much as an inappropriate glance. He would not do that to their bond.

It was a comfort to him that Ino hated all men with such active dislike. If she'd come out of Kabuto's clutches with the ability to love men, to lay with them… Shikamaru would have killed her, her lover, and then himself. He would not have been able to see his Ino go to another man, to have another man kiss her as he wanted to, or run his hands through the glory of her hair. But Ino was drawn to women, and only infrequently at that. He'd kept track. She'd only been with nine women since coming to the northeast and none at all when they'd been down south. They were brief encounters for Ino, lasting only hours. He understood that the encounters weren't so much about sex as it was about Ino exploring her sexuality. She'd only known the ugly aspect of sex in her life. She'd wanted to know what else the act could be and had chosen women as her playing field.

Recently, she'd begun speaking of some woman named Sakura. He could tell it was serious. It was all right. Shikamaru wanted Ino to be happy. If she found love with this Sakura, then he would support Ino all the way.

For himself, he didn't think he could love anyone outside of Ino. He sampled women of all shapes and sizes but had no love for the bitches. His last girlfriend had left him when he'd lost his job and did not seem fussed to find another. He'd listened to her ultimatum with a bored air, waiting for her to get out of his face. When she'd tearfully asked why he wasn't upset that she was leaving him, he'd merely turned and slammed the house door, leaving her standing on the stoop.

He never felt anything for anyone. Only Ino. But that was his secret, one he'd take to his grave.

* * *

He had an untraceable email account that he used exclusively for certain contacts. Among these contacts was the man he'd hired to locate his parents and Ino's. Ino's parents had yet to be found, since he didn't know her last name or where Kabuto had taken her from. He skimmed the contents of his inbox and came across the email that had finished killing his human emotions. It was from the hired man, dated seven months ago.

_Sir,_

_I've found them. Nara Shikaku and Yoshino. It is as we feared and they are dead. Attached is a copy of their death certificates and the police report filed for their missing son and the resulting investigation. Do you want the details of their deaths, sir? It isn't pretty._

Shikamaru had replied that yes, he wanted every detail. The man's reply was below the original email.

_Sir,_

_I got these details from another investigator your parents had hired to find you. That man went into hiding for reasons that will become clear to you. I had a difficult time tracking him down. I've enclosed his report. Thank you for putting my last fee in my account. A pleasure doing business with you._

Shikamaru sat with one elbow on his desk, his mouth covered by that hand. His other hand tapped his keyboard in thought as the mouse hovered over the attached file. He knew what it contained, had been ripped to shreds by the contents…

He clicked the attachment. It was all he had of his parents. No matter how much it hurt to see it again, it was all he had.

-oOo-

The file arranged itself in pages. Shikamaru scanned the first one, reading intently, flaying himself with the information.

His parents had reported him missing when neither they, nor the amusement park officials could locate him by the time the park closed. Police searched for months with no luck or leads. His parents had turned to a private investigator who'd been exceptionally good at his job.

His parents had been ecstatic to learn that the money they paid the investigator was well-spent; their son had been found, a year and a half after his kidnapping. The investigator had given them the location but counseled them to wait until he could notify the police and they could obtain warrants for Kabuto's arrest.

His parents hadn't waited.

They'd flown to Alabama from Atlanta, Georgia where they'd lived. His father had been in possession of a gun that he'd bought after he landed.

Apparently, they'd gotten to the trailer. They'd even been able to walk right up to it and peer inside one of the windows, through a gap in the curtains.

They'd seen two men sodomizing their son and abusing a thin girl similarly.

It was at that point that Kabuto had appeared behind them and put a gun to the back of his mother's head. He'd ordered Shikamaru's father to step away from the window or his mother would be shot. His father had complied. He'd been summarily relieved of the gun in his waistband.

Kabuto shot his mother twice in the head anyway. He'd shot his father in the gut and had his body dumped along a highway drainage channel.

Police had found him but by then it had been too late. Shikaku had told them everything he'd seen. He'd told them of some man who had his son and had killed his wife, but he'd barely been coherent. He'd died a few minutes later. The police went to the address named, only to find the trailer gone and his mother's body mutilated and buried not far away.

All this was information the investigator had pulled from the police file illegally. He'd been contacted shortly after the mess with Shikamaru's parents by the man Kabuto had hired to kidnap him in the first place. Instead of being killed, as the investigator was sure was supposed to happen, he'd killed Kabuto's hired gun and gone deep into hiding.

The man Shikamaru had hired had located him only after two years of looking for him. He'd obtained the file and promised not to divulge his whereabouts. The investigator was still leery, even though Shikamaru's man had informed him that Kabuto was dead. The investigator's response was in the report: _Kabuto wasn't working alone. He had to be backed by a major player in order to have such efficient people working for him. He may have lived like a redneck, but he was much more than that. I'm staying under._

His parents had died knowing their only son was being tortured and abused. They'd died in pain. They'd died because of him. There were autopsy photos and police photos of his father's body and his mother's remains that he looked at with dry eyes. He looked for a long time, unable to cry because the hurt was too big to be acknowledged by tears.

-oOo-

Shikamaru closed the file and sat staring at his screensaver. It was a picture of Ino that he'd taken without her knowledge. In the picture, she was standing at the stove, frowning down at eggs in a pan that she was trying to scramble. She was a horrible cook. She was wearing grey cut off sweats that displayed her muscular legs and a plaid shirt tied beneath her chest. Her abs and the small of her back were displayed. She was barefoot, the toes of her right foot scratching her left calf. Her hair was freshly washed, loose, cascading like a golden fall to where her thighs joined her firm ass. A candid picture, sweet beyond words. She'd been making the eggs for him. His eyes ran over every line of her statuesque body, every strand of hair, every curve of her down-turned face. He traced a fingertip over the shirt. It was his. Gradually, the acid in his belly simmered down the longer he stared at Ino's picture.

He didn't remember hearing gunshots outside the trailer, but then he'd never been aware of anything but the rape whenever it was taking place. He dimly recalled their trailer picking up and moving a few times. Kabuto had never mentioned his parents finding him.

If he told Ino she would only be sad for him and angry on his behalf. She was angry enough, he wouldn't add to it. As close as they were, he knew she'd want to know of his findings, but he honestly could not speak of it. If he voiced this particular horror it would be like letting loose his rage; he'd never be able to reign it in again. And if he didn't keep himself in control, he didn't know what he'd do. He was barely hanging on as it was. His only safety valves were Ino and the movies. And his computer.

* * *

His phone rang. It was another device he'd built. He lived off the radar and made sure he and Ino couldn't be found by whoever had been associated with Kabuto. If they ever did find them, he'd be ready, but again, he did not look for trouble.

His phone listed the owner of whatever number called it, regardless of if the number was unlisted, scrambled, or otherwise private. It was one Haruno Sakura. He answered, having done a full search on Sakura the first time Ino mentioned her. He knew everything there was to know about her, down to the results of her last Pap smear. She wouldn't have his number. No one had his number except Ino. If anyone ever asked him for a number, they received the house number. Ino must then be with this Sakura. "Yes."

"It's me," Ino's voice said. "I need you to meet me some place."

"Trouble?"

"Not really. Sakura wants to rough up some guy a bit. He's a cop, or I wouldn't bother asking you." Ino's voice sounded funny, as if her nose was clogged.

He took a certain USB cord from inside a desk drawer and connected his phone to his laptop. He accessed a program that would erase his number from Sakura's phone, making it impossible for her to retrieve it or call it. "Details," he said. When Ino recited them, Shikamaru began pulling data on Uchiha Sasuke, while his computer accessed Sakura's phone and her service provider.

It was illegal to mess with a cop, true… but Shikamaru always got around the law. Besides, it didn't sound like Ino and Sakura had anything serious in mind. A nice way to pass a few hours.

He, like Ino, did not sleep much. The nightmares were too unendurable in the defenselessness of slumber.


	6. Temari

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

**Shikamaru:** ticking time bomb. Loves Ino, but has no intention of being with her sexually, ever.

**Temari:** Cowed. Subservient and submissive personality.

* * *

She sat stiffly on the couch, her stomach churning as Kankurou listened to her fiancé set a date three days away for their wedding. It would be a small affair, with them signing papers in a court house, nothing more. Only herself, her fiancé, and Kankurou would be in attendance. It was undecided whether or not any relative of her fiancé or her own younger brother would attend.

Kankurou seemed pleased, Temari noted. He liked her fiancé. Or rather, he liked the idea of Temari marrying money. Her fiancé was very different from the boyfriend she'd been with for five months. He was manager of a bank, while her boyfriend had been a lowly security guard. And then her boyfriend had lost even that meager job.

* * *

She'd met her boyfriend at the hospital he worked at. She had been receiving treatment for facial bruising and a dislocated jaw. Her brother had left her standing at the hospital exit while he signed some forms at the reception desk. Her former boyfriend had been stationed at that exit. He'd looked at her without interest, then looked away.

Kankurou had bustled up and taken her arm. She'd flinched unintentionally when he reached for her, from force of habit. Kankurou turned a smile on her for the benefit of the security guard watching, but had spoken in a low voice so that only she could hear.

The security guard seemed to assess the situation anyway and deduced who had messed her face up. "Only cowards beat those weaker than themselves," he'd said with a bored expression. He was looking at Kankurou.

Kankurou had walked right up to him and looked at his name tag. "Shikamaru, is it? I think you'd better mind your own business."

Shikamaru's expression hadn't changed as he looked up at her much taller brother. "And I think you'd better get out of my face."

Something in Shikamaru's voice had given her brother pause. He'd spat at Temari to go outside, following swiftly after her. She'd had occasion to be in the hospital several times after that incident, but he never took her back to St. Vincent's.

But there were very few people who'd ever stood up to Kankurou, even less who'd made her brother back down. She'd gone back to the hospital a month later in secret and there Shikamaru was, leaning against the wall as if bored. He'd eyed her with flat eyes as she approached him timidly.

She liked him. A lot. He wasn't talkative or particularly fun. He did not compliment her or buy her things if she didn't ask for them. He did not suggest they do entertaining things together other than go to the movies. All this was fine with her because she didn't need those things from him. What she did need from him, he had in spades.

He made her feel safe.

Beyond that, she _was_ safe around him, and so long as she was his girlfriend. The first time after they'd been going out that she'd shown up with a black eye, Shikamaru had borrowed his room mate's motorcycle without a word and driven directly to her house. He'd left her in the company of that same room mate, a tall woman who Temari found intimidating to be around.

What had happened at her house she didn't know, but Kankurou never touched her again while she was dating Shikamaru. For some odd reason he stopped even _looking_ at her, going out of his way to stay as far away from her as possible. She only wished he stayed away from her baby brother as well.

Shikamaru, though fairly short, had that affect on almost everyone he came into contact with. His 5' 7" managed to convey a wealth of violence, though he insisted that he was an ordinary person.

Her baby brother had come to her one night while they'd been seeing each other and asked about him. They'd had a long discussion that had gone on till the wee hours of the morning about just what it was about Shikamaru that terrified their abusive brother. They didn't know, since Shikamaru never told Temari, but they had a good time speculating.

Her younger brother, Gaara, often had long conversations with her at night. He was a quiet, enigmatic young man, never really speaking to anyone outside of his sister. He was a sweet boy, very loving to his sister and a pleasure to most people he met, even if he was wary around them. Temari knew he was gay, knew he had a secret boyfriend that he saw from time to time, but that was all. She never found out who the boyfriend was. She only knew Gaara had stopped seeing his mystery lover around the time she and Shikamaru had broken up because Gaara had stopped sneaking out at night to meet him. She sometimes wondered why Gaara never spoke of is lover, when they spoke of everything else. Or nearly everything.

She'd been hoping Shikamaru would ask to marry her. He was all right in bed, if not very affectionate. He was never mean to her. She could live with him. He repelled her brother so effectively that she felt putting up with his strange personality was a small price to pay.

Especially since she was two and a half months pregnant with Shikamaru's baby.

She'd gone to his house one night about seven weeks ago on the pretense of another date. In actuality she'd gone to break the news to him. Faced with his bland expression, though, she'd lost some of her nerve. She'd deliberately lied about being on the pill with him in order to conceive. She'd done it to bind him to her, her only protection from Kankurou. Later, after they were married, she'd get Gaara away from their brother and they could all live happily ever after.

In the end, instead of outright telling him, she'd asked him how he felt about babies and children in general. His answer was forever etched in her mind, an answer she felt she should have expected, but had somehow never anticipated. He'd said, "Babies? I'd castrate myself before ever siring a child. I hate children."

She'd sat in numb silence, aware of the life growing inside her, for several minutes. Then she'd gotten hysterical. She'd said a lot of things she didn't mean, out of fear, about him being a dead beat, being jobless, before she'd found herself facing him from across the threshold of his house door. She'd made one last effort to hang on to him, aware that he was turning his back on her for her panicked outburst. But then he'd slammed the door and turned his back for real. She'd been left to find her own way home. She'd been petrified of her brother finding out Shikamaru had left her and that she was carrying his baby.

-oOo-

About two weeks later Neji had come into her life.

He bumped into her, literally, at a grocery store in their neighborhood, and had struck up a conversation with her as he helped her pick up the oranges she'd dropped. He said he felt so bad that he wanted to drive her home. This he did, insisting on meeting her family. Kankurou and Gaara had been home. Kankurou had looked questioningly back and forth between her and Neji's rambling explanation for his presence. Gaara had only looked at Neji and left the room.

Neji kept in contact. Soon he asked her out and she went, flattered that he would find her attractive. She'd been told all her life that she was ugly, that her hair was too bushy, her eyes too strange a color. Neji seemed to find her pretty. He certainly complimented her enough. Kankurou got her alone after that first meeting and questioned her about Shikamaru, to which she replied with the truth. Shikamaru had left her. Kankurou approved of Temari going out with Neji, though, so took care to leave his blows where she wouldn't bruise. She'd pissed blood for days afterward. She feared for her child.

She couldn't say that she particularly liked Neji. He did not make her feel safe, nor did he attempt to have sex with her. He said he was old-fashioned and preferred to only have sex within the boundaries of marriage. She'd held her breath, hoping…

He proposed the next day. She accepted. She would inform him about the baby after the wedding, she decided, and tell him it was his. When the child was born, she'd tell him it was premature.

* * *

But right now, looking at the way Kankurou's eyes gleamed as he shook Neji's hand, she wondered if she'd be free even after she was married. Neji hadn't blinked an eye when Kankurou had slapped her last week, and he'd been right there in the room.

Neji pecked her cheek now and left. Kankurou stood against the mantel, watching her with a small smile. His undershirt stuck to him in sweaty patches; their apartment had no air conditioning. She remained where she was on the couch, not meeting his eyes. He came over to her and caressed her cheek, making her close her eyes and tighten her body in on herself.

"Well, sis," he said in his raspy voice. "Looks like you landed yourself a prime catch. Don't know what he sees in your tired ass. Guess I should take what I can, while I can, huh?" He dropped down beside her and Temari tightened her body further, unconsciously curling forward slightly to protect her stomach.

-oOo-

Their mother had died birthing Gaara. Their father had been a drunk who ended up getting himself stabbed to death in an alley over a matter of ten dollars. Temari had been fifteen. He'd been abusive to all three children.

Their mother's brother had taken them in. He'd been a decent guardian, but no match for Kankurou and his rebellious ways. Kankurou routinely skipped school, drank, and ran with gangs until their uncle decided to have him sent to foster care. There Kankurou had remained.

Five years ago, their uncle had died of prostate cancer. She'd been eighteen, Gaara fifteen. She had a job working in Bath and Body Works, but social workers told her she was too young to take care of Gaara herself. And her salary wouldn't have supported them in any case. Her uncle had left them a couple of hundred dollars and not much else.

They'd lived with a distant aunt for three years, until Temari finished nursing school. Nursing paid much better than her old job had and she was at last able to move into an apartment and take Gaara with her.

But Kankurou was of legal age by then and had left his foster family. He'd shown up at their door and hadn't left since. He proceeded to pick up where their father had left off.

Temari worked. Kankurou saw to that, since he didn't have a job. He hadn't even attended college. Temari supported all of them, handing her paychecks to Kankurou as he demanded at the end of each month. Whenever she needed hospital care for herself, he always took her to New York, never any hospital in their home state of New Jersey. He definitely never took her to the hospital she worked at.

Neji lived in Queens, so maybe Kankurou felt he wouldn't be able to get at her as easily.

-oOo-

Kankurou was rough now, as always. He was the one who'd put her on birth control when he moved in, not wanting to impregnate her. She bit her lips to keep her screams in until it was over.

One thing she was grateful for was that Gaara didn't have to suffer through this aspect of Kankurou's abuse. She never told him of it, either. Bad enough Kankurou knocked his slight form around almost daily.

Neji had said he loved her. She didn't love him, but she needed to get out from under her brother's control. Then she could protect Gaara and her baby. Maybe she could persuade Neji to move someplace far away.

As Kankurou finished and stood to go to his room, Temari lay motionless on the couch. She reached between her legs and brought some of the moisture she found to her face, making sure there wasn't any blood. There wasn't. Her baby was safe. All she had to do was make it to the wedding.

Kankurou's snores sounded through the tiny apartment. Temari stood and went to the room she shared with Gaara. He should be asleep as well.

* * *

He wasn't. He was waiting up for her, sitting on his side of the bed with a book in his hands. The look on his face said he knew what Kankurou had done, and had known about the activity for a long time. Temari fought down tears as she slowly turned from him to undressed for bed. She winced as a sore shoulder joint creaked in protest.

"I heard a date's been set," Gaara's voice drifted across the room.

"Why didn't you come out to congratulate us, then?"

Silence.

Temari held her breath as a cramp in her lower abdomen pulsed for several heart beats before fading away. She'd had these cramps before. She knew it was her uterus expanding, and not Kankurou's rape. When she could speak, she resumed putting on her nightshirt. She turned for the bed and sat down gingerly, too tired to wash Kankurou's touch from her skin. She looked at her brother's troubled profile. "You don't like Neji, do you." It wasn't a question.

Gaara stared at a page without reading. "Don't you think it's sudden, him wanting to marry you?"

"Yes… but he can keep us safe, Gaara. You were unconscious for hours last time Kankurou put his hands on you, remember? The doctors thought you might slip into a coma."

Gaara gave her a strange look. "You really think Neji would stop Kankurou if he decided to come after us?"

Temari couldn't answer, calling up Neji's tall, lean image in her mind. He didn't look like a fighter.

Gaara saw her hesitation and confirmed what they both knew. "He can't." He turned back to his book. "And you should be suspicious of him wanting to marry you so quickly."

Temari managed a sleepy smile. She'd worked overtime tonight at the hospital. "You think I'm ugly too?"

Gaara frowned impatiently. "You know what I mean."

She did. She'd thought of it herself, that Neji's whirlwind romance of her might be suspect. "He can have any woman he wants, Gaara. He doesn't have to marry me. What do I have to offer?"

"You think he really loves you then?"

"I think he's our ticket out of here."

Gaara's brow smoothed out. "Oh. As long as you're not in love with him, and you plan on using him too. Otherwise, I'd tell you not to go through with it."

"What do you mean, using him _too_? And would you really prefer we stay here with Kankurou?"

"No. But I didn't know you'd really accept Neji to be away from him, either. If it comes down to it, we can just leave on our own," Gaara said feebly. "We could go to the police."

Temari reached up a hand to stroke his smooth cheek. "You know he'd stop us, Gaara. He'd find us and stop us. Painfully."

Gaara scowled at his book. After a minute he nodded. "I know. Just promise me you'll never trust Neji. I don't like seeing you hurt."

Temari studied her brother's sea green eyes, still ringed with the kohl he wore daily. "I promise."

Now Gaara turned to her. He looked at her long and hard. "You know you'll always have me, right? No matter what happens. Even when… I mean _if_ this marriage doesn't work out. I'll always be there for you. As soon as I'm done school, I'll get a good job and take care of you."

Temari smiled encouragingly, though they both knew Kankurou would find some way to prevent that. Neji was their best bet. She would take Gaara away from here and hopefully she could convince Neji the baby was his. He'd want to move to keep his own child safe, wouldn't he?

She fell asleep, her hand on her brother's waist. Later she turned in her sleep and let him snuggle her from behind, the way they always did. She murmured, dimly aware of the brotherly kiss he pressed to her bushy hair.


	7. Neji

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

**Shikamaru:** ticking time bomb. Loves Ino, but has no intention of being with her sexually, ever.

**Temari:** Cowed. Subservient and submissive personality.

**Neji:** mid-life crisis.

* * *

Neji loosened his tie upon exiting the stifling apartment Temari called home, almost faint. He made it to his car and turned the A/C on the lowest setting possible, leaning into the welcome blast of frigid air. Only then was he able to breathe properly.

His heart was beating hard enough to scare him. He'd had his fortieth birthday some months ago. If he was going to have a heart attack, he didn't want it to happen here in his car. It was a real possibility, though. The stress of the past two months had given him chest pains, twinges, which alarmed him greatly. As he leaned away from the vents at last, Neji considered making an appointment with his doctor.

He'd come to Jersey the night after his confrontation with Sasuke. As he'd driven away from the park, he'd glanced in his rear view mirror to find that strong man collapsing. He'd almost hit his breaks. Sasuke was a steady man, or so Neji thought. Had his statement that they were over hurt him that much? He honestly hadn't thought so. The man hadn't seemed pleased, but he couldn't have developed feelings so strong in the short time they'd known each other, not when it had been obvious all along that the whole thing had been a mistake, could he?

He'd had a hard pain hit him then.

Tonight he'd stubbornly driven to Jersey in order to set a date for his farce of a wedding, wanting to get it over with. Seeing Temari, still in her nurse's whites, sitting in fear of her brother had brought on another pain. He didn't want her. He'd never wanted her or any other woman. Outside of a severe infatuation when he'd been in high school, the only person he'd ever seriously wanted had been Gaara.

The thought of him simultaneously sharpened Neji's chest pain and brought him relief. He breathed through the worst of it, resting his head on his steering wheel. When the episode had passed, he threw his car into drive and began making his way home.

* * *

He'd met Gaara a few months ago, at his fortieth birthday party. His co-workers had done the unthinkable and held his surprise party in a gay club. Neji wasn't officially out of the closet, but his co-workers were also his friends, the people he golfed with. Some of them had known him for years. They knew things about him that he didn't necessarily shout to the world.

The club had been full of the younger generation, loud, glitzy and teeming with energy. He'd been sheepish, showing his years until his friends had gotten him drunk. Then he'd let his hair down, so to speak. And come to think of it, Neji thought as he drove through the first toll, his hair had been down literally as well.

Gaara had been at a table by himself, watching the club scene with a look of faraway indifference. Neji noticed him because he seemed to be the only person who was still. He remembered reeling over to Gaara's table and blurting out the first thing that came to mind:

"What an odd place for a tattoo."

He remembered Gaara smiling, but that was it. The rest of the evening was a blur of hard liquor, cake, a raucously sung rendition of the birthday song, and wild dancing with Gaara. Neji remembered streaking across the club in his own birthday suit, his friends hot on his tail, and a few episodes of throwing up in dark corners.

-oOo-

He'd woken up at home the following morning, in bed, with Gaara next to him and watching him silently.

Even now, Neji winced at how he'd leaned over the side of his bed and thrown up in Gaara's presence. He was a stickler for his image, and just then he hadn't thought it possible to make a worse first impression, discounting the foolishness at the club.

Semi-sober, he got a good look at his companion. Gaara was breathtaking. Neji had sat in bed, listening to Gaara explain how one of his co-workers had driven him home and how he'd tagged along to make sure Neji was all right. He'd watched the early morning light turn Gaara's pale eyes into wonders of celestial magnitude. His hair was thick, short, and dark red, a color that was too brazen to be anything but natural. The kohl only complimented both eyes and hair, and suited what was becoming evident as a withdrawn disposition. Gaara spoke with the deference Neji associated with grunt workers at his job; the kid seemed apologetic for his very existence, constantly looking at Neji from beneath his lashes as if to say _I'm sorry you're forced to look at me._

He'd been smitten. At the club his inebriation had dulled the impact of Gaara's beauty. Now, there was no buffer, and Neji felt a mixture of emotions and impressions that almost made him drunk again.

Above all, he'd felt humbled. The way one would feel in church, if they were religious. Humbled and awed and immediately desperate for ownership. He'd coveted Gaara the way most men coveted money or other symbols of power. Gaara was unearthly in his beauty, transcendent in his almost painful air of meek forbearance and innocence. He had power over Neji, and Neji wanted him. He could scarce call his feelings attraction, so sharp and unexpected was his longing. It was with a sense of hopeless anxiousness that he'd sat drowning in Gaara's supernatural beauty, in his near holy mannerisms and quiet speech. The boy was as close to divine as Neji ever expected to see on this earthly plane of existence.

Had he realized his perceptions were colored largely by his recent passage into his fourth decade and the lingering effects of a night of booze, Neji would have had an uncharacteristic and much-needed fit of the giggles. He was an uptight person by most people's calculations. They weren't wrong.

Gaara informed him that they hadn't had sex. He'd then gotten up to leave, saying he wasn't supposed to be gone all night. He'd risen fully clothed from Neji's sheets and proceeded to shove his feet into multi-colored, neon-bright Nikes. Neji watched him leave in a daze of brilliant adoration, positive that he'd met the love of his life.

Neji was grateful as he'd been for nothing in his life previously that Gaara had left his cell phone number. He'd contacted him that evening and had him out to dinner. Gaara had shown up with a bruise coloring one cheek. When he'd asked about it, Gaara had told him he'd gotten into trouble for staying out all night. Neji had noticed that he moved carefully and kept his right arm close by his side, as if in pain on that side of his body.

He'd been outraged, wanting to have a serious word with Gaara's parents, but Gaara never gave out his address or acknowledged that anything was wrong. Neji felt his heart would burst with love. Gaara's silence in the face of his suffering made him seem like Christ slaughtered on the cross in Neji's eyes. Indeed, he was close to worshipping the youth, so vehemently did he love Gaara.

Neji fawned over him, showered him with gifts until it became clear Gaara put little store by material things. He took personal days from work, worked from home, called in sick… he began avoiding his friends, all so that he might tailor his days around the time Gaara got out of school or for the days Gaara didn't have classes. He told Gaara everything about himself, withheld nothing. Gaara shared very little of himself, but he was sweet beyond the telling of it, listening with interest to all Neji had to say. Sometimes Gaara said he was unable to see Neji and those were the days Neji died slow deaths, or fired people at work for walking too loudly or typing too slowly.

The sex was a benediction. Neji felt like a postulant whenever Gaara consented to make love with him. The first time he got a look at Gaara's nude body, he understood why the boy had been so hesitant. Gaara was a mass of bruises, old, new, and those yellowish ones in between old and new. Neji begged to be allowed to involve the police, but Gaara always said no, distracting him soon after with his touches and shy kisses.

Neji had been forced to settle for being as gentle with Gaara as he could, showing him the softer side of humanity. He offered to bottom for Gaara, but was always declined.

Then, about three months ago, Gaara had changed. He'd begun behaving oddly, becoming quieter and more introspective. Neji had asked repeatedly if anything was amiss, to which Gaara would reply with surprise that nothing was wrong. Yet Neji would catch him staring into space, and that was if the kid showed up to meet him at all. His visits dwindled until they stopped altogether.

Neji had been frantic. He followed Gaara home one night, sure he'd discover another lover.

Instead he found an abusive older brother, a mousy older sister and nothing else. Neji had bribed the super of their apartment building for this information and had sat outside across the street until he saw the brother make a beer run. He watched for days, going there after work, until he'd been sure Gaara wasn't cheating on him. Only then did he confront him.

Confront was the wrong word. He'd called Gaara and begged him for an audience. When Gaara showed up, he'd wined him and dined him, and taken him out to the opera. All pursuits outside of Gaara's tastes, but Neji was putting his very best foot forward. At the end of the evening, he'd asked Gaara if he'd come with him to the Hyuuga home, where most of his elder family resided, and assist him in coming out to them. Gaara had smiled his gentle smile and kissed him… and said he was sorry, but he couldn't be with Neji anymore. He wished him the best of luck with his family.

Neji had driven home in a state of grief comparable to nothing in his previous experience. He was able to literally feel his mind disconnecting from reality. He felt every feeling he harbored for Gaara rise up in denial of having lost him and, before he'd reached his garage door, had managed to convince himself that it hadn't happened. Gaara still loved him, but was young and used to the antics of the young. He would come around, Neji told himself, with the proper persuasion.

-oOo-

He'd gone hunting. He'd never engaged in the activity, but even so, he made sure to do it someplace away from Queens. He ended up at a cheesy dive in the village that catered to both males and females of the gay variety. He'd sat gingerly at the bar and looked over the selection. He found someone whom he'd thought would suit within the first ten minutes. The man was big, Neji's height or thereabouts, and broad. He sat swigging a bottle of beer as if he wanted to be anyplace but where he was. After a moment, Neji noticed the man was handsome in a washed out aristocratic sort of way. Like a noble fallen on hard times. Gaara had always behaved as if apologizing for breathing. This man seemed to exude an air of something else. As Neji studied him through the stale smoke in the place, he decided the fallen noble seemed to have given up on life. It came to Neji after another minute of discreet staring: the man was depressed.

He'd been disbelieving of Neji's pursuit for a few hours, but Neji had turned on the charm as he'd never done anything in his life, intent on catching this big Latino so that he could retrieve Gaara. Topping such a big man had been an experience, but not an unpleasant one. Had his heart not belonged to Gaara, Neji would have admitted to himself that Sasuke, as he learned his name was, was one of the best lays he'd ever had. Touchy, wonderful kisser, almost indecently passionate in bed. He'd been an excellent distraction for a week, but by then Neji had decided he'd screwed around enough. He took the videos he'd made of his lovemaking with Sasuke (unbeknownst to same. Learning Sasuke was a cop had come as an unwelcome shock) and sent them to Gaara's phone. He'd then sat back and waited for some sort of response.

Gaara had only sent back a brief text. _I'm happy for you._ Neji felt himself drop into despair as if on a runaway elevator, before the emergency breaks of his obsession saved him. Of course Gaara was jealous. He was too proud to show it, that must be it. That _had_ to be it. Comforted now in soothing anger, Neji had decided the gloves must come off if he was to win back Gaara. Somehow he'd managed to convince himself that Gaara was patiently waiting for Neji to make a dramatic enough display of his feelings, one that would allow Gaara to come back without losing face. Neji had a plan.

-oOo-

He'd taken a day off from work to personally stalk Gaara's sister. The woman was a timid, hunch-shouldered shadow with eyes that peered nervously from beneath her blonde bush of hair. Neji had never been attracted to women, but he could damn well pretend. He'd contrived a meeting with her in the grocery store, flattering her outrageously. Then he'd insisted on meeting her family, relying on the mere sight of him in his home to make Gaara see what he had in mind. In the few seconds his and Gaara's eyes had met in the living room, Neji had seen that the younger man had indeed understood.

Unless Gaara came back to him, Neji would seduce his sister.

The following weeks were hell for Neji. He was forced to pander to Temari by day, and listen to Gaara tell him his schemes wouldn't work by night. Neji treasured these phone calls, but at the same time they poked holes in the elaborate fantasy that he'd cooked up, the one that had Gaara secretly yearning for him as much as Neji yearned for the redhead.

Gaara had nearly begged him. "Leave my sister alone, Neji. She doesn't deserve this. I do care about you, but not the same way you care about me. Is it fair to punish me and my sister like this just because you can't accept that? Just leave her alone. Please."

And Neji had responded with, "If I do will you come back to me? I love you, Gaara. More than my life." There had been silence from the other end of the phone. Sensing victory was near, Neji had pressed his attack, saying recklessly, "If you don't come back to me I will marry her. You'll have a lifetime to regret leaving me, seeing me with your sister everyday. Do you want that?"

Gaara's voice had sounded defeated. "You're just like my brother. You hurt with actions instead of your hands, but you're just like him. I never did anything to deserve this, and neither has my sister. Leave us alone." And Gaara had hung up.

Neji had experienced the worst chest pain yet, aware that he was behaving irrationally, and yet unable to stop. The next night he'd gone to Sasuke and decisively broken it off. That had been yesterday. Tonight he'd set a date, with Gaara watching from a crack in his bedroom door, hoping against hope. Gaara had shut the door, and Neji had shook Kankurou's slimy hand as if hammering the last nail into his own coffin.

* * *

He was home. He had no memory of driving there, he just found himself sitting in his garage, the garage door rolling shut behind him, and his engine idling. He turned off the ignition and sat where he was, his mind a blank as certain key aspects of his delusions underwent drastic changes. After some minutes, he opened his door, locked his car, and went into his home.

_Not a home_ , Neji thought as he hung his keys on their hook. A house. A building where he slept, but one that had no part of his true self in it. It had none of his true self, because he didn't know who he was. He went up the carpeted stairs to the second floor and turned left into his bedroom. He flicked on the light.

He'd spent his life studying hard in school, only to get a career that sucked just as much of him dry. He was competitive at work, climbing the ladder to success, pursuing money and prestige when none of it made him happy. He didn't even know what would make him happy because he'd never taken the time to find out. He pushed himself to excel, always, but for what? And at what cost? Who was he? What was he living for? Even his golf games and so-called friends served business related purposes.

Gaara, with his achingly beautiful spirit, had cut neatly through the thin shell of Neji's persona to the empty reality it housed. He'd filled that emptiness with his own sweet, kind personality. Neji loved him more than anything. More than the shell could hold. The shell was shattered. And now that Gaara was gone and the shell was gone, the emptiness was back, with no boundaries to keep it from swallowing Neji whole.

-oOo-

Undressed and wearing silk pajamas, Neji walked barefoot to his bathroom. He stood on the cool marble tiles and studied his reflection as he undid his braid. When his hair lay in brown sheaves around his angular face, he became still, looking into his own grey eyes.

No more lies.

No more delusions.

Gaara wasn't coming back. However devastating Neji's own feelings were for the boy half his age, Gaara didn't feel the same way.

He, Neji, had used an innocent man to aid his schemes and had ended up hurting that man. He'd hurt Sasuke, who'd given him nothing but honest companionship. He'd been callous during the breakup, he saw that now. The lies he'd told Sasuke about being faithful to his wife, lies said to ensure he stopped calling Neji, made his head spin with sick wonder at the depths to which he'd sunk.

And now he was going to condemn a frightened woman to a sexless marriage in the hopes of making her brother jealous. He was hurting Gaara when the boy had done nothing to earn such treatment. Neji was hurting him with his love.

With the realization that he was hurting the one person in life he would never have intentionally hurt, the last of Neji's blindness seeped away. He was left looking at the truth in the mirror.

He'd hurt so many people. Gaara was gone and he'd hurt so many people because of that. The wedding was three days away and he would continue to hurt people.

And it had brought him nothing. Would bring him nothing.

"I'm a monster."

There was no one to contest the statement. His heart hurt him, wrenched at the loss of Gaara. His green-eyed angel.

The mirror doubled as the door to the medicine cabinet. Neji opened it now and took out a bottle of prescription sleep aids he'd been given by his doctor nearly a year ago. He hefted it, estimating that the bottle was half full. He drew a glass of tap water, opened the bottle and began swallowing the pills in pairs, washing them down with more water as needed.

* * *

In bed, he made himself comfortable. He felt better. At peace. He'd made a mess, but he'd cleaned it up. And one should always clean up their messes, he thought as he drifted off to sleep. He'd never been irresponsible. Blinded, yes, but now he could see.

Before the darkness claimed him, he saw light. He saw Gaara in the light and went willingly into it, joyful at the welcoming smile and open arms Gaara greeted him with.


	8. Gaara

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

**Shikamaru:** Ticking time bomb. Loves Ino, but has no intention of being with her sexually, ever.

**Temari:** Cowed. Subservient and submissive personality.

**Neji:** Mid-life crisis. Loved Gaara.

**Gaara:** Inferiority complex.

* * *

He waited until his sister was asleep before slipping away. He dressed quietly in his baggy jeans and sleeveless hoody, his run down Nikes. He drew the hood up over his hair, hiding his face before he carefully picked up his keys, making no sound. He paused in the living room. The smell of Kankurou's abuse of his sister was heavy in the muggy air. Kankurou gave a grunting snore just then and Gaara left the apartment as noiselessly as possible.

Outside, he scanned his surroundings for any possible threats before settling into a steady jog that would take him the five miles to his destination in roughly half an hour. The slap of his rubber soles was the only sound for blocks.

-oOo-

The last three months of Gaara's life had pretty much revolved around one thing. One person. He'd been involved with Neji or he would have noticed the guy sooner. Neji was a charmingly naïve older man, a nice man, but Gaara had never felt anything other than affection for him. He liked him well enough, maybe even loved him a little. It was hard not to, seeing how hard Neji tried to please Gaara, but it had never gone beyond that. Not for him, anyway. Neji was another matter.

When he'd spotted him with his group of well-dressed friends in that club, he'd thought him a staid individual. Then to see how much he loosened up with a few drinks in him, Gaara had been greatly amused. Neji had a ribald sense of humor when drunk. Gaara had cast off his own trademark hesitation and danced as he'd never done before. It had been a fun evening, a rare evening. He couldn't remember the last time he'd behaved so wildly, if he ever had. Gaara never engaged in high emotions like that. He went to clubs to pass his evenings and stay out of Kankurou's way, not to mingle. He'd enjoyed seeing other men and women look for love, but he'd never felt the need companionship.

He knew what passion was. Now. He supposed he'd known what it looked like, since Neji was passionate about him, but he'd never experienced it himself. Not until he'd seen the guy he was running to now.

That was inaccurate. The first time he'd seen him, he'd only thought _weird hairdo. Does he gel it?_ Then, when he'd been properly introduced, had shaken the guy's reluctant hand, he'd had a chance to look into the eyes. He'd thought _He's alone, like I am._ Later, he'd understood that the man was alone for a reason. It was finding this reason that really began reeling Gaara in. That and the sheer antagonism rolling off the guy. He couldn't say why those negative vibes were so compelling, especially since he lived with negativity daily, but then Gaara didn't usually look for reasons for why things were.

A lot of people saw Gaara, the way he dressed, his quiet demeanor, and automatically labeled him as emo. This wasn't necessarily the case. He just never had much to say to anybody. When he did deign to speak, if he had something to say, Gaara considered himself as normal as anyone else. His home life sucked, but so did a lot of other people's. He wasn't an unhappy person. He just kept his business in his own backyard.

-oOo-

He knew his brother was a small, insecure man, just as their father had been. He had no love for Kankurou. There were times he feared him more than at other times, but generally Gaara just accepted his lot in life where his brother was concerned. If Temari was able to get away, great. He hoped Neji kept her safe, but her dream of them all living under one roof did not strike him as a possibility. He didn't think life in Neji's household would be pleasant for him, not knowing that his sister was married to a man who didn't love her. Gaara could only imagine that Neji would welcome him with open arms, expecting to pick up where they'd left off right under his sister's nose. The thought of such an arrangement made the fine hairs on his neck stand up. It would be worthy of Jerry Springer, that kind of situation.

He supposed he'd never told Temari of Neji because it had never been serious for him. Neji had been a comfort, a safe place to go to when he needed it, but it hadn't been love. It hadn't even been lust. Neji had been his first, but it hadn't been special or life-changing. It had just been nice. Neji had always been gentle and for that Gaara would forever be grateful.

When he'd broken it off with Neji he'd known the man would protest, but he'd expected him to behave with the maturity of his years. He'd expected Neji to express his disappointment and move on, not do the rash things he'd done. He'd watched the videos of Neji and some beefcake writhing in a dingy apartment, Neji crying out lustily throughout, and had felt sad. Neji was a proud man, a dignified man. It saddened Gaara that he would be reduced to using such petty measures, all to win him back. Even blackmailing him through his sister had saddened him. But it had angered him more. He'd told Neji to stop, but of course he hadn't. And Gaara wouldn't tell his hopeful sister she was being used. He wouldn't do that to her. Maybe he was wrong to withhold that information, but he honestly didn't have it in him to hurt her that way, not when she was already being hurt from every side.

* * *

The evening was balmy. A light sheen of sweat coated him under his clothing. He wasn't tired, not yet. He ran for twelve miles daily, he could make it to his destination and back home non-stop with energy to spare. His breathing was evenly timed with his footfalls, and his body moved comfortably in this familiar routine. It always served to clear his thoughts. The endorphins he released invariably soothed his troubled mind. He was happy when he was running, happier when he was running towards his current destination, and happiest when he'd reached it and stood watching the man without his knowledge.

He arrived a few minutes later and took up his post across the street in the dark, shadowy front yard of a house undergoing renovations. The place was uninhabited, the bushes and weeds in the yard overgrown. Some of these bushes were higher than Gaara's head and provided excellent cover. He moved to his customary spot and had settled in, in time to see the object of his interest stroll up to the open driveway of the house across the street. A few moments later a light came on in one of the second floor windows. He saw the man sit as his desk and access his computer. Gaara stood in the black shadows and prepared himself to watch.

His name was Shikamaru and Gaara wished he had the nerve to approach him. He hadn't dared when his sister had been going out with him because he would never take anything from Temari. Besides, Shikamaru had been interested in his sister, or so he'd thought. Later, he hadn't approached him because he was afraid. Shikamaru was someone who clearly preferred to be left alone. Gaara highly doubted his interest would be welcome. Recently dealing with Neji and his unwanted ardor, he knew what it was like to deal with a pest. He didn't want to be a pest, but he couldn't stop thinking about Shikamaru and his misanthropic ways.

It was hard to describe. Gaara stood there, watching Shikamaru stare at his computer screen, and considered that he couldn't even identify what it was that pulled him so strongly. He tried nightly, but always came up with the same thing: Shikamaru projected a strong sense of self-sufficiency that did a very poor job of hiding even stronger vibes of deep pain.

Maybe he was the only one who could see it, Gaara thought. People certainly steered clear of Shikamaru, Kankurou included. He'd never actually witnessed Shikamaru committing an act of violence, but he knew the man had a pistol-grip shotgun. Regardless, Shikamaru's true nature was obvious to Gaara. It was like looking at a black hole, one that sucked every emotion Shikamaru had into it, until there was nothing left but the pain he lived with. Gaara decided then and there that it was this that drew him to Shikamaru. It was his pain, endured alone and in silence, that made Gaara want to run his hands over Shikamaru's face, to hold him and tell him that he wasn't alone anymore.

But he was too cowardly to do that.

He didn't even know what Temari would say if he approached her ex that way. Weren't women supposed to be territorial over their ex-boyfriends? He seemed to recall some obscure rule about boyfriends being off-limits to friends, even if a boyfriend was no longer in the picture. Gaara had a dim idea that this rule would also apply to siblings.

And so he contented himself with watching from afar, feeling Shikamaru pull him deeper and deeper under his spell. It was a strangely pleasant feeling, the sensation of falling in love. Gaara was able to observe himself as if he were outside his body, noting how much stronger the feeling grew each night he watched the unsuspecting man across the street. He was not a whimsical person to believe a man could fall in love with someone they'd barely spoken to, but the fact was he was living proof that it was possible.

Shikamaru traced his finger over his screen now. Gaara wondered what he was thinking. He was too far away for Gaara to see his expression, but he thought maybe Shikamaru looked sad. He was definitely tense, and had been for some time, but now he looked a little sad as well.

Would Shikamaru be open to a homosexual relationship? Gaara asked himself this for the thousandth time. How would Shikamaru react if Gaara approached him for simple friendship? He didn't think Shikamaru had friends outside of his Amazon of a room mate. He'd followed the man to the movies sometimes, but that was it. Shikamaru went no place else unless he was with that same room mate, and then it was only to a restaurant or a gym over in Brooklyn.

The sound of the phone ringing was just barely audible through Shikamaru's open window. The street was quiet, so he was able to make out Shikamaru's voice as he said 'yes'. Gaara wondered what kind of phone it was. He'd never seen anything like it. He watched Shikamaru doing something on his computer again as he spoke briefly into his phone, then hung up. He continued to work on his computer for some minutes. He saw Shikamaru check his watch.

-oOo-

If there was one lesson Gaara had learned in life, it was to keep your head down and don't make waves. Bad situations passed if left alone long enough. All one had to do was remember that they were insignificant in the grand scheme of things. What difference if you were trodden on by someone larger and stronger? Eventually someone even larger would trod on _them._ That was life. Just keep your head down and live it, because nothing you did would amount to anything anyway. Gaara certainly never would have believed that the simple decision not to see Neji anymore would drastically affect the lives of seven other people. He was nothing major to anyone except Temari.

But now he was coming to believe that good things passed you by too, if you kept your head down too long. Or maybe he finally wanted something badly enough to lift his head and do something about it. Maybe he'd finally met someone that made him want to take control of his life and live it on his terms instead of always being controlled by others. He was twenty years old and had never actively pursued anything for himself.

Even so, when Shikamaru opened the back door leading out into the garage an hour later, Gaara was there, clammy hands shoved deeply into his pockets after having rang the bell. He looked up into Shikamaru's neutral eyes and tried to smile through his debilitating nervousness. "Hi. You might not remember me, but I'm Gaara."


	9. Epilogue

* * *

  **Sasuke:** Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.

**Naruto:** Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.

**Sakura:** Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.

**Ino:** Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.

**Shikamaru:** Ticking time bomb. Loves Ino, but has no intention of being with her sexually, ever.

**Temari:** Cowed. Subservient and submissive personality.

**Neji:** Mid-life crisis. Loved Gaara.

**Gaara:** Inferiority complex. Loves Shikamaru.

* * *

Sasuke

He'd gotten home Saturday night and paused in the hall to see if his neighbor would be around. The hall was deserted. He spent at least three minutes shaking his keys loudly on the pretense of opening his door, but his neighbor didn't make an appearance. Sasuke entered his apartment, disgusted with himself for wanting to fuck his neighbor again. And okay, the brownies hadn't sucked either.

He'd had to visit four ATM machines in the middle of the night in question to leave a thousand dollars for his neighbor. It was his way of apologizing for his crude behavior and thanking him for the brownies and the sex. It was money he could ill-afford to spend, but he admitted to himself that the evening had been worth it. His neighbor had gotten him through the worst of his grief. Now, Sasuke was mostly pissed at Neji. If he ever saw the _cabron_ again, things would go differently, of that he would make sure.

His buzzer woke him in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning. He groped for his gun, checked to make sure it was loaded, and went to his door in his boxers. A glance through the peephole showed a bunch of strangers. Probably looking for someone else in the building and had gotten the wrong apartment. He opened his door.

First off, "strangers" wasn't entirely true. He recognized the pink-haired sprite as someone who visited his neighbor from time to time. Sasuke barely looked at her, or at the tall, beefy dyke staring at him with a bruised face and a recently broken nose. All his attention was on the slight man behind the two women.

Sasuke had recently been on a drug bust of a building down in Harlem. The place had been full of junkies and strung out shitheads in the process of shooting up. The ones looking to score had yet to acquire junk and had the nervous, needy, do-anything-for-a fix attitude that addicts got after using for any length of time. This guy behind the sprite and the dyke wasn't jumpy like that but he gave off the same capable-of-anything vibe with his steady stare. Sasuke correctly pegged him as the most dangerous of the trio and cocked a bullet right there in front of them, body tensed to spring.

The sprite spoke in withering tones. "We'd like a word with you, Sasuke."

Sasuke didn't even get a chance to answer. The dyke only waited until the sprite was done speaking before she plowed a fist like a battering ram into his gut and had him doubling over. Her fist then crashed into the back of his neck and Sasuke saw stars. He brought his own fist up, rearing backward to take aim, but the dyke had by then muscled him back into his apartment. He went down with her on top of him, feeling her rock-like blows and hearing someone lock his door. He heard a shotgun cocked and thought, _Fucking hell, what the Christ is this shit?_

 

* * *

Naruto

Sakura left him in her pretty apartment to go with Ino to the hospital. They didn't come back until after the sun was up Sunday morning. Ino wasn't with her. Sakura spent every moment with him after work that week and Naruto slowly began to recover. Sakura really was a great friend.

He decided he wanted a change of scenery. He told Sakura that he wanted to move to the farthest hole on the planet for awhile and decided on the Middle East. Kuwait, specifically. Sakura agreed that some travel would be a good idea. She said she'd watch his apartment for him and see that his plants were watered. He left the following week.

* * *

Shikamaru

Gaara interested him. He'd never been interested in anyone before. He did not give in to the interest, opting to sit back and see what would happen.

* * *

Temari

Neji didn't show up for the wedding in court. They'd been forced to leave, as other court business cropped up and required the judge's attention. Temari had hung her head in shame at having been stood up at the altar. Hours later, after they were home, Kankurou called Neji's house in Queens and got some cousin or the other. He was told that Neji had been found dead two days ago. He hung up the phone and turned to his sister, furious.

"You drove him to it with your ugly self, I bet," he snarled as he advanced on her.

Temari had heard her brother's end of the phone conversation. Neji was dead and there went her last hope of escape. The safety of her baby and Gaara was now up to her.

If Kankurou had ever heard the saying that a kicked dog would eventually turn and bite, he might have hesitated before going after his sister. As it was, he made a shocked sound of surprise when Temari took the letter opener she'd picked up from the dining table in their living room and rammed it into his eye. He fell and made no sounds at all as she continued to plunge the thin blade into the softest parts of his body. Gaara came home from school and found her sitting calmly near Kankurou's bloody corpse. "We're safe now," she told his stunned face.


End file.
